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183.8 
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1916 


Mexican  Policy 

of  President  Woodrow  Wilson 
as  it  Appears  to  a  Mexican 


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LAWRENCE  F.  ABBOTT,  Esq.,  President  of  The  Out- 
look Company,  publisher  of  "THE  OUTLOOK/'  says  of 
this  work  by  Mr.  Calero : 

"I  have  read  with  care,  and  to  my  surprise  with  deep 
interest,  the  copy  of  the  manuscript  you  sent  me  entitled 
'The  Mexican  Policy  of  President  Woodrow  Wilson  as  It 
Appears  to  a  Mexican.' 

"I  say  with  surprise,  because  I  have  read  an  almost 
endless  amount  of  material  on  the  Mexican  situation.  Yet 
I  found  this  particular  review  and  interpretation  of  the 
problem  more  instructive  and  illuminating  than  almost 
anything  else  I  have  read.  My  judgment  is  that  no  man 
who  reads  it  can  fail  to  understand  the  main  historical 
points  of  the  present  complicated  relations  of  this  country 
to  Mexico  and  the  effect  which  our  policy  has  produced 
both  in  Mexico  and  in  the  United  States. 

"In  spite  of  its  uncompromising  condemnation  of 
President  Wilson's  course,  it  is  written  in  the  language 
and  the  spirit  of  the  diplomatic  gentleman." 


COPYRIGHTED,  1916 


The  Mexican  Policy 

* 

of  President  Woodrow  Wilson 
as  it  Appears  to  a  Mexican 


By 

MANUEL  GALERO 

Secretary  of  Foreign  Relations,  and  later,  Ambassador  to  the 

United  States,  under  the  administration  of 

President  Francisco  I.  Madero 


Press  of 

SMITH  &  THOMSON 

68  Broad  Street 

New  York 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER         I. — The  Fall  of  President  Madero 7 

CHAPTER       II. — The  Non-Recognition  of  Huerta 12 

CHAPTER     III. — The  Duel  Between  President  Wilson   and 

Huerta  14 

CHAPTER  IV. — President  Wilson,  Protector  of  the  Revolu- 
tionists    26 

CHAPTER        V. — The   Triumphant   "Constitutionalists"    and 

The  Recognition 32 

CHAPTER      VI. — Ought  the  American  Government  to  Have 

Recognized  Carranza? 38 

CHAPTER     VII. — The  First  Consequences  of  the  Recognition. 

— Santa  Isabel  and  Columbus 49 

CHAPTER  VIII. — From  Columbus  to  Carrizal 55 

CHAPTER       IX.— The  Cruel  Side  of  the  Policy  of  Mr.  Wilson.     60 

CHAPTER        X. — Pecuniary  Responsibilities  of  the  American 

People    67 

CHAPTER  XI. — False  Postulates — "The  Struggle  for  Lib- 
erty." "The  Fight  for  the  Land."  The 
Concessionaires  77 

CHAPTER    XII.— The  Power  of  Words.— "He  Has  Kept  Us 

Out  of  Mexico"   87 

Appendix    - 95 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  FALL  OF  PRESIDENT  MADERO. 

Early  in  February,  1913,  a  part  of  the  garrison  of  the 
City  of  Mexico  revolted  against  the  government.  The 
chief  of  the  movement  was  General  Bernardo  Reyes.  The 
rebels,  with  Reyes  at  their  head,  tried  to  occupy  the  Na- 
tional Palace  but  failed  on  account  of  the  resistance  which 
was  made  to  them  there.  General  Reyes  perished  in  the 
attempt;  and  the  rebels  who,  from  that  moment,  were 
under  the  orders  of  General  Felix  Diaz  (nephew  of  former 
president,  Porfirio  Diaz),  marched  to  the  arsenal  —  or 
citadel — which  they  occupied  after  a  brief  combat.  There 
they  shut  themselves  in  and  fortified  the  place. 

The  Government  immediately  determined  to  attack  the 
Citadel  and  suppress  the  uprising.  Troops  were  brought 
from  different  parts  of  the  Republic  and  the  command  of 
these,  as  well  as  the  direction  of  operations,  was  entrusted 
to  General  Victoriano  Huerta. 

After  ten  days  of  fighting,  with  grave  damage  to  the 
buildings  of  the  City  and  considerable  loss  of  life  among 
the  inhabitants,  the  situation  suddenly  changed.  General 
Huerta,  secretly  placing  himself  in  accord  with  the  rebels, 
took  possession  of  the  persons  of  President  Madero  and 
Vice-President  Pino  Suarez ;  the  attacks  against  the  Cita- 
del ceased  and  peace  again  reigned  in  the  City. 

This  happened  on  the  18th  day  of  February,  1913. 

A  few  hours  after  the  President  and  Vice-President 
were  arrested,  General  Victoriano  Huerta  and  General 
Felix  Diaz  held  a  conference  in  which  it  was  agreed  and 
declared  that  the  government  of  Mr.  Madero  had  ceased, 
that  Huerta  would  take  charge  of  the  Executive  Power 
and  that  Diaz  would  reserve  to  himself  the  right  of  pre- 
senting himself  as  candidate  in  the  presidential  election 
which  would  have  to  be  convoked.  This  famous  confer- 
ence took  place  in  the  Embassy  of  the  United  States. 

7 


8 

The  principal  problem  for  Huerta  consisted  in  having 
his  authority  recognized  throughout  the  Republic.  He 
was  able  to  count  upon  the  passivity  of  the  people,  but  it 
was  impossible  that  his  spurious  government  would  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  different  military  chiefs  and  by  the  gov- 
ernors of  the  twenty-seven  states.  The  situation,  how- 
ever, was  cleared  within  twenty-four  hours  by  the  attitude 
of  President  Madero  and  Vice-President  Pino  Suarez,  who 
consented  to  resign  their  offices.  The  following  plan  was 
contrived  for  the  purpose,  which  Mr.  Madero  accepted: 
Upon  the  acceptance  by  the  Chamber  of  Deputies — which, 
according  to  the  Mexican  Constitution,  is  competent  for 
the  case — of  the  resignations  of  the  President  and  Vice- 
President,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Relations,  Lascurain, 
would  be  converted  automatically  into  provisional  Presi- 
dent ;  Lascurain  would  appoint  Huerta  to  the  first  post  in 
the  Cabinet  and  thereupon  he  would  resign  the  Presidency 
in  order  that  Huerta,  at  the  same  time,  might  remain,  also 
automatically,  as  provisional  President. 

This  plan  was  executed  to  the  very  letter. 

The  easy  attitude  of  Mr.  Madero  and  the  action  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  were  the  salvation  of  Huerta.  The 
latter  was  immediately  recognized  as  President  by  the  en- 
tire army  and  by  the  governors  of  twenty-five  of  the  twen- 
ty-seven states  into  which  the  Republic  is  divided.  The 
government  was  organized  without  delay  and  all  the 
nations  of  the  world,  with  the  exception  of  five,  recognized 
it  as  the  legitimate  government  of  Mexico. 

It  being  a  fact  fully  proved  that  Mr.  Madero  was  a  man 
of  great  personal  valor,  it  is  not  easy  to  attribute  his  resig- 
nation to  fear  of  losing  his  life.  Although  he  was  a  pris- 
oner when  he  resigned,  no  violence  was  offered  to  his  per- 
son. Mr.  Madero  knew,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  al- 
ready noted,  that  the  immediate  effect  of  his  resignation 
was  to  give  the  Presidency  to  Huerta,  and  to  cover  with 
a  varnish  of  legality  that  which  at  bottom  was  a  usurpa- 
tion. 


But  Mr.  Madero  consented  to  all  this,  surely  for  the 
generous  and  patriotic  purpose  of  avoiding  further  evil  to 
the  country.  The  Chamber  of  Deputies,  the  majority  of 
which  was  devoted  to  Madero,  lent  its  concurrence  to  the 
unfortunate  combination,  and  the  traitorous  general  was 
thus  able  to  appear  clothed  with  the  character  of  provi- 
sional President,  which  he  would  not  have  been  able  to 
attain  if  Madero  had  assumed  a  different  attitude. 

If  we  wish  to  apply  to  these  proceedings  the  standard 
of  American  politics,  we  will  have  to  condemn  them  as  null 
and  without  value ;  but  if  they  are  to  be  judged  according 
to  the  standard  of  Latin- American  politics,  the  conclusion 
will  be  different.  The  proceeding  followed  by  Huerta  was 
not  of  his  invention ;  it  is  one  which  has  prevailed  in  the 
countries  that  are  found  south  of  the  Rio  Grande  and 
which  is  still  applied  and  will  continue  to  be  applied  for 
many  long  years  in  the  greater  part  of  them.  The  tem- 
perament, the  economic  factors,  the  political  traditions, 
the  want  of  preparation  for  self-government  and,  more 
than  all,  the  decisive  influence  which  is  exercised  by  the 
mass  of  Indians,  completely  ignorant  and  illiterate,  who 
form  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  population — all 
this  explains  the  difference  in  political  methods  between 
those  countries  and  the  more  favored  ones  of  this  con- 
tinent. 

It  does  not  enter  into  the  object  of  this  sketch  to  refer, 
not  even  in  a  brief  synopsis,  to  the  history  of  the  changes 
of  government  in  the  Latin-American  countries.  Nor 
could  the  writer  ever  justify  acts  which  are  repugnant  to 
his  conscience. 

But  if  it  is  desired  to  have  an  idea  of  the  turbulent  poli- 
tical life  of  those  peoples,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  recall  the 
case  of  Bolivia  which  in  seventy-three  years  has  suffered 
not  less  than  sixty  revolutions  and  has  seen  six  of  its 
presidents  assassinated,  and  others,  in  greater  number, 
obliged  to  seek  security  in  exile.  Was  not  the  proceeding 
of  Huerta  the  same  as  that  which,  a  few  days  afterwards, 


10 

was  applied  in  Peru  when  a  military  chief  headed  an  up- 
rising of  his  soldiers  and  took  possession  of  the  person  of 
President  Billinghurst  and  imprisoned  him  in  the  Peni- 
tentiary1? The  new  Peruvian  government,  born  in  this 
manner  out  of  betrayal  and  of  military  revolt,  has  been, 
nevertheless,  recognized  by  all  ...  including  President 
Wilson ! 

From  the  moment  in  which  the  resignations  of  Messrs. 
Madero  and  Pino  Suarez  were  admitted  by  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  the  former  were  converted  into  simple 
private  citizens.  Three  days  afterwards  these  ex-officials, 
who  had  been  detained  in  the  National  Palace,  were  con- 
ducted toward  the  Penitentiary  and  were  assassinated  on 
the  road. 

The  defenders  of  the  policy  of  President  Wilson  take 
great  pains  to  reverse  the  order  of  these  events.  As  dis- 
tinguished a  man  as  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Mr. 
Lane,  has  said:  "With  the  elected  President  and  Vice- 
President  murdered  and  the  Secretary  of  State  (Las- 
curain),  who  was  their  lawful  successor,  cowed  into  sub- 
mission, Huerta  took  the  reins  of  power."  (Authorized 
interview  in  the  New  York  World,  July  16,  1916.) 

We  should  not  fail  to  call  attention  to  the  political  im- 
portance which  the  order  of  events  has  in  this  case. 
Morally  judged,  the  assassination  is  as  reprehensible  and 
criminal,  committed  before  the  advent  of  Huerta  to  power 
as  afterwards,  but  when  it  is  said  that  Huerta  obtained 
the  government  by  means  of  the  assassination  of  Mr. 
Madero,  the  truth  is  altered.  It  has  been  explained  above 
that  Huerta  came  into  power  by  virtue  of  the  resignation 
of  President  Madero  and  that  the  latter  knew  the  material 
and  political  consequences  of  his  own  act.  Mr.  Madero 
was  assassinated  on  the  22nd  of  February  at  midnight. 
Huerta  had  taken  the  oath  of  office  as  provisional  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic  before  the  Congress  on  the  19th. 

What,  then,  was  the  motive  of  this  odious  action?  The 
assassination  of  Madero  was  a  "political  crime"  as  in  all 


11 

probability  it  was  executed  because  of  the  fear  that  Ma- 
dero  could  initiate  a  new  and  formidable  revolution  as 
soon  as  he  should  recover  his  liberty.  Madero  had  dared 
to  rebel  against  the  strongest  government  that  Mexico  had 
ever  had — that  of  General  Porfirio  Diaz — and  had  forced 
it  to  fall.  Why  should  he  not  accomplish  a  similar  feat 
against  the  men  who  had  succeeded  him! 

The  men  who  killed  Madero  did  not  assassinate  any 
president,  but  a  man  who  had  ceased  to  be  such.  Assassi- 
nations of  a  political  character  are  only  a  natural  fruit  of 
the  turbulent  Latin-American  politics.  As  the  govern- 
ments of  these  countries  subsist  only  on  condition  of  not 
having  active  enemies,  Latin-American  presidents  often 
resort  to  assassinations  as  a  means  to  maintain  peace  and 
conserve  their  power.  It  would  be  easy  to  cite  the  names 
of  actual  presidents  in  Central  and  South  American  states 
who  have  used  and  are  using  homicide  as  a  means  of  rid- 
ding themselves  of  their  enemies.  Mr.  Carranza,  the  pro- 
tege of  President  Wilson,  employs  this  means  with  as- 
tonishing frequency,  in  the  guise  of  punishment  for  al- 
leged treason,  or  of  military  necessity. 

Such  is  the  sad  condition  in  which  the  majority  of  the 
Republics  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  are  found ;  that  con- 
dition, nevertheless,  is  not  of  a  permanent  character.  Chile, 
Brazil,  Argentina,  Uruguay,  and  perhaps  some  others,  ap- 
pear to  have  redeemed  their  politics  from  this  shameful 
vice.  Mexico  also  appeared  free  from  it  when  Madero  as- 
cended to  power,  who,  though  indeed  a  revolutionist  and  a 
destroyer  of  the  public  order,  never  ordered  the  death  of 
any  man,  and  showed  himself  generous  even  to  his  bitter- 
est enemies.  For  this  reason  he  was  overthrown. 


12 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NON-RECOGNITION  OF  HUERTA. 

A  few  days  after  the  happening  of  the  events  related  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson  occupied  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States. 

Huerta,  following  diplomatic  practice,  directed  auto- 
graphic letters  to  the  monarchs  and  presidents  of  the  coun- 
tries with  which  Mexico  maintains  relations,  announcing 
his  elevation  to  power.  All — with  the  exception  of  five — 
answered  those  letters,  formal  recognition  of  Huerta  as 
provisional  President  of  Mexico  being  thus  effectuated. 
The  American  government  abstained  from  making  reply 
and  succeeded,  by  means  of  direct  requests,  in  having  the 
governments  of  Brazil,  Chile,  Argentina  and  Cuba  follow 
its  example. 

What  did  President  Wilson  propose!  To  deprive 
Huerta  of  the  moral  support  which  the  recognition  of  the 
United  States  would  signify  for  him?  If  such  had  been 
his  object,  Mr.  Wilson  would  have  been  acting  his  part  of 
moralist,  and  his  attitude  would  have  been  fully  justified 
in  the  field  of  abstract  morals. 

In  the  field  of  international  law,  however,  and  of  the 
precedents  of  the  American  government,  the  conclusion  is 
different.  Huerta  was,  at  least,  a  de  facto  ruler  and  he 
was  such  during  many  months.  The  American  govern- 
ment has  always  recognized  governments  de  facto,  even 
those  born  of  military  insurrection,  such  as  the  present 
government  of  Peru  which  was  recognized  by  Mr.  Wilson. 

In  reality,  in  all  this  business  of  the  "Mexican  Policy" 
of  President  Wilson,  there  is  a  lamentable  confusion  of 
ideas.  The  President  did  not  expressly  recognize  Huerta 
because  he  did  not  reply  to  his  autographic  letter ;  but  he, 
nevertheless,  maintained  in  Mexico  for  more  than  a  year 
an  Ambassador,  first,  and  afterwards  a  Charge"  D'Affaires. 
The  American  Ambassador  officially  congratulated 


13 

Huerta  for  his  elevation  to  power,  and  President  Wilson 
did  not  recall  that  Ambassador  until  five  months  after- 
ward. Huerta  appointed  a  Charge  D' Affaires  in  Wash- 
ington who  was  for  more  than  a  year  recognized  as  such. 
The  Department  of  State  in  Washington  published  con- 
stantly in  its  monthly  bulletin  the  name  of  this  Charg6 
D'Affaires  as  the  "Representative  of  Mexico."  Lastly, 
the  official  relations  between  both  governments  were  ex- 
pressly and  solemnly  interrupted  by  the  delivery  of  their 
respective  passports  to  the  Charges  D'Affaires  when  the 
forces  of  the  United  States  occupied  Vera  Cruz  in  April, 
1914,  fourteen  months  after  Huerta  took  possession  of  the 
government. 

From  this  it  cannot  be  said  with  any  truth  whatever  that 
Huerta  was  not  recognized.  The  express  recognition  has 
little  to  do  with  the  case  if  both  governments  treated  each 
other  reciprocally  as  such  governments.  If  the  intention 
of  Mr.  Wilson  was  that  of  not  recognizing  Huerta,  the 
stay  of  the  American  Embassy  in  Mexico  had  no  possible 
explanation.  It  was  not,  indeed,  for  the  purpose  of  watch- 
ing over  the  lives  and  interests  of  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  since,  aside  from  the  fact  that  this  duty,  as  the 
whole  world  knows,  has  little  concerned  the  present  ad-- 
ministration in  Washington,  such  a  mission  could  have 
been  confided  to  the  representative  of  any  friendly  nation, 
as  is  frequently  done  in  practice. 

It  is  not  worth  while,  however,  to  quibble  over  mere 
words.  Call  it,  or  not,  recognition  of  the  government  of 
Huerta,  the  true  question  is  this :  that  non-recognition,  a 
merely  negative  act,  fell  within  the  constitutional  faculties 
of  President  Wilson,  whereas  to  destroy  Huerta,  to  throw 
him  from  power,  was  a  positive  act  which  did  not  come 
within  the  legal  faculties  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  which  is,  moreover,  a  direct  violation  of  inter- 
national law. 

That  this  was  the  real  purpose  of  Mr.  Wilson,  will  be 
amply  demonstrated  in  the  following  chapter. 


14 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  DUEL  BETWEEN  PRESIDENT  WILSON  AND  HUERTA. 

In  the  moments  of  the  uprising  against  President  Ma- 
dero,  Huerta,  drunk  with  joy  and  rum,  directed  a  telegram 
to  President  Taft  informing  him  that  he  had  "overthrown 
the  government."  Secretary  Bryan  and  others  have  said 
that  this  telegram  was  in  itself  sufficient  reason  for  not 
recognizing  Huerta,  but  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  when  Huerta  solicited  recognition  it  was  after  the 
Mexican  Congress  had  accepted  him  as  President  and  had 
taken  from  him  the  oath  of  office.  Still  later,  as  has  been 
explained,  occurred  the  assassination  of  ex-president  Ma- 
dero. 

Mr.  Wilson  found  himself  with  this  situation  upon  oc- 
cupying the  White  House.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that 
to  a  spirit  such  as  his  it  would  have  been  repugnant  to 
recognize  Huerta  as  President  of  Mexico.  Prudence,  how- 
ever, would  counsel  him  to  maintain  a  waiting  attitude 
until  the  purposes  of  the  new  government  touching  the 
fulfillment  of  its  international  obligations  had  been  de- 
fined. If  these  were  duly  fulfilled,  there  was  no  other 
road  open  to  President  Wilson,  after  waiting  a  prudent 
term,  than  that  of  formally  recognizing  Huerta  in  the 
same  manner  that  another  president  of  the  United  States 
had,  a  few  years  before,  recognized  King  Peter  of  Servia 
who  had  mounted  the  throne  over  the  bloody  corpses  of  a 
king  and  queen,  victims  of  an  odious  military  insurrection. 

Nevertheless,  it  can  well  be  supposed  that  President 
Wilson  had  desired  to  give  a  lofty  example  of  interna- 
tional morality  in  refusing  absolutely  to  recognize  a  presi- 
dent who  had  arrived  to  power  by  the  tortuous  proceed- 
ings employed  by  Huerta;  and  even  when  such  attitude 
should  appear  to  have  lost  its  virtue  with  the  recognition 
by  him  of  the  Peruvian  government,  still  it  would  have 
been  possible  to  add  a  new  motive  of  justification  to  the 


15 

attitude  that  we  are  supposing,  namely  that  it  was  claimed 
that  Huerta  had  stained  his  hands  with  blood. 

This,  or  other  explanations  more  or  less  plausible, 
could  have  been  given  to  justify  any  innovation  which 
President  Wilson  might  have  desired  to  impress  upon  the 
practices  of  recognition ;  but  it  was  one  thing  not  to  recog- 
nize Huerta  and  a  vastly  different  thing  for  the  President 
to  impose  upon  himself  the  task  of  destroying  the  power 
of  Huerta. 

Huerta  was  a  usurper.  But  did  it  belong  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  to  drive  him  from  the  place 
usurped?  This  was  a  matter  that  concerned  exclusively 
the  people  of  Mexico.  If  the  Mexican  Congress  had  sanc- 
tioned the  usurpation,  it  was  ridiculous  to  suppose  that 
the  President  of  the  United  States  had  the  authority  to 
undo  what  the  Mexican  Congress  had  done.  Nevertheless, 
this  it  was,  nothing  less,  which  Mr.  Wilson  proposed  to 
himself  to  execute  and,  in  effect,  did  execute,  making  use, 
for  that  purpose,  of  every  kind  of  means,  as  will  be  seen 
further  on. 

And  it  is  not  mere  conjecture  to  say  that  President  Wil- 
son proposed  to  himself  to  overthrow  Huerta.  The 
"Democratic  Text  Book"  of  1914,  which  is  an  enthusiastic 
apology  of  Mr.  Wilson  and  which  speaks  with  authority, 
says  in  this  respect  that  the  President  "notified  the  other 
governments  that  not  only  would  Huerta  not  be  recognized 
by  the  United  States,  but  that  the  influence  of  the  Ameri- 
can Government  would  be  exerted  against  him." 

Unfortunately  not  only  was  that  influence  used,  but  also 
the  material  power  of  the  American  government. 

This  attitude  of  President  Wilson  was  baptized  by  him- 
self, ironical  as  it  may  appear,  by  the  name  of  the  policy 
of  "Watchful  Waiting."  Its  first  result  was,  nevertheless, 
that  of  strengthening  Huerta  instead  of  weakening  him. 
It  offered  to  the  latter  the  occasion  of  exhibiting  himself 
as  champion  of  the  national  dignity,  as  defender  of  the 
sovereignty  of  Mexico  against  the  intrusion  of  a  foreign 


16 

government.  The  European  press  so  considered  it.  The 
people  of  various  South  American  cities  acclaimed  Huerta 
as  a  hero,  the  paladin  of  the  honor  of  the  Latin  race.  The 
special  Embassy  which  Huerta  sent  to  Japan  was  received 
with  public  enthusiasm  and  with  great  acclamations  to  the 
dictator. 

The  first  step  of  President  Wilson  in  the  execution  of 
his  policy  was  that  of  stationing  powerful  squadrons  in 
Vera  Cruz  and  other  Mexican  ports.  The  government  of 
Huerta  informed  that  of  the  United  States  that  the  Mexi- 
can constitution  fixed  a  limit  of  one  month  for  the  stay 
of  foreign  vessels  of  war  in  the  waters  of  the  Kepublic, 
but  the  notice  was  disregarded  and  the  ships  remained  in 
the  ports  as  if  they  had  been  converted  into  American 
naval  stations. 

Was  this  done  out  of  consideration  for  the  fact  that  the 
ships  were  necessary  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of 
American  residents  in  Mexico  1  A  negative  answer  is  im- 
posed. In  the  first  place,  President  Wilson  has  not  shown 
any  interest  in  his  countrymen  in  Mexico.  (This  has  been 
amply  proved;  it  does  not  belong  to  the  author  of  these 
lines,  who  is  a  Mexican,  to  reproduce  here  the  proofs.)  In 
the  second  place,  the  government  of  Huerta  was  not  hos- 
tile to  the  persons  and  interests  of  Americans,  nor  could 
there  be  any  doubt  of  his  ability  to  protect  them.  On  the 
contrary,  until  the  violent  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz  by  the 
forces  of  the  United  States,  foreigners  in  general  and 
Americans  in  particular  suffered  in  their  persons  and 
property  only  in  those  regions  occupied  by  the  enemies  of 
the  government  of  Huerta. 

The  stay  of  the  war  vessels  in  Mexican  waters  without 
any  practical  necessity,  and  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the 
country,  irritated  the  public  sentiment  and  served  as  a  sad 
prologue  to  the  second  step  of  intervention  of  President 
Wilson,  which  was  the  sending  of  Mr.  Lind  on  a  most 
stupendous  mission. 

Mr.  John  Lind  arrived  in  Mexico  with  a  message  from 


17 

President  Wilson  inviting  Huerta  to  abandon  his  office. 
Mr.  Wilson  suggested  as  a  means  thereof  the  celebration 
of  a  general  election,  but  on  the  express  condition  that 
Huerta  should  not  be  a  candidate. 

When  this  step  became  known  to  the  public — which  was 
taken  as  the  purpose  of  Mr.  Wilson  to  dictate  to  Mexico 
the  class  of  government  which  it  must  have — a  sentiment 
of  indignation  was  manifested  everywhere.  The  eloquent 
notes  with  which  Mr.  Gamboa,  Secretary  of  Foreign  Re- 
lations, answered  the  memorandum  of  Mr.  Lind,  contrib- 
uted to  increase  the  general  excitement.  This  arose  to  a 
great  height  when  Lind  indicated  to  Mr.  Gamboa  that  the 
American  government  would  make  use  of  its  influence  to 
aid  the  Mexican  government  in  obtaining  a  loan,  provided 
Huerta  would  accept  the  conditions  proposed  by  Mr. 
Wilson. 

In  his  message  to  Congress  on  the  27th  of  August,  1913, 
President  Wilson  declared  that  Lind  had  discharged  his 
mission  "with  singular  tact,"  but  whoever  is  acquainted 
with  the  Latin-American  temperament  will  comprehend 
that  it  was  an  unheard  of  stupidity  to  make  the  offer  of 
financial  support  under  such  circumstances,  which  in 
public  was  taken  as  a  covert  form  of  proposing  a  bribe  as 
a  means  of  obtaining  the  end  that  was  sought. 

Huerta  took  advantage  of  the  public  sentiment  in  his 
favor.  President  Wilson  aided  him  in  clothing  his  wan- 
ing personality  with  a  false  prestige.  The  dictator  accen- 
tuated his  part  of  defender  of  the  outraged  national 
dignity. 

Mr.  Wilson,  who  is  wholly  ignorant  of  the  temperament 
of  Latin- American  peoples,  could  not  take  account  of  the 
damage  which  he  was  causing  to  Mexico  with  the  embassy 
of  Mr.  Lind.  When  the  latter  arrived  in  Vera  Cruz,  there 
existed  against  Huerta,  not  only  among  the  civil  element, 
but  among  the  military,  profound  motives  of  discontent. 
It  was  entirely  probable  that  a  well  combined  movement 
would  have  overthrown  the  dictator,  thus  freeing  the  coun- 


18 

try  of  one  of  its  most  baneful  governments.  But  all  was 
frustrated,  due  to  the  intrusion  of  President  Wilson. 
"Huerta,  right  or  wrong,"  said  everybody,  "rather  than 
accept  a  foreign  imposition." 

Thus  strengthened,  Huerta  grew  in  audacity  and  felt 
himself  capable  of  committing  the  worst  outrages.  Upon 
the  invitation  of  President  Wilson  that  a  prompt  election 
should  be  held  in  order  that  the  country  might  return  to 
the  constitutional  order,  Huerta  answered  with  the  violent 
dissolution  of  the  Congress,  an  act  which  completely  ended 
all  appearance  of  constitutional  government  in  Mexico. 

The  mission  of  Lind  having  utterly  failed,  President 
Wilson  applied  himself  to  more  practical  proceedings. 

It  is  known  that  a  little  while  after  Huerta  was  in- 
stalled, the  governor  of  the  State  of  Coahuila,  Venustiano 
Carranza,  initiated  a  revolution  against  him.  Very  soon 
Carranza  had  to  flee  from  his  state  and  seek  refuge  in  the 
State  of  Sonora  whose  governor,  Maytorena,  had  also  re- 
pudiated the  government  of  Huerta.  Little  by  little  the 
movement — to  which  was  given  the  name  of  "Constitution- 
alist," because  its  alleged  object  was  the  re-establishment 
of  the  Constitution — was  increasing  in  the  north  of  the 
Republic,  thanks  to  the  impetuous  military  action  of  the 
"General"  Francisco  Villa. 

Mr.  Wilson  found  a  new  and  greatly  efficient  means  of 
combatting  Huerta:  namely,  that  of  strengthening  the 
"Constitutionalists."  For  this  purpose  he  raised  the 
"embargo,"  that  is,  the  prohibition  which  existed  of  ex- 
porting arms  and  ammunition  from  the  United  States  to 
Mexico.  With  this,  Villa  was  able  to  organize  and  arm  a 
powerful  army  and  the  power  of  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment against  Huerta  was  made  formidable. 

But  because  not  even  with  this  aid  did  the  power  of 
Huerta  disappear,  President  Wilson  resorted  to  a  new  ex- 
pedient. By  the  efforts  of  the  American  government,  the 
French  government  interposed  its  veto  to  prevent  cer- 
tain French  bankers  from  completing  the  loan  which  they 


19 

had  contracted  with  Huerta  and  of  which  he  had  only  re- 
ceived one-third  part. 

Naturally,  the  government  of  Huerta  faced  threatened 
bankruptcy  and  so  it  was  compelled  to  resort  to  extreme 
measures,  the  first  of  which  was  to  suspend  payment  of 
the  interest  on  the  interior  and  exterior  debt  of  Mexico. 
The  credit  of  the  Republic  received  thereby  a  mortal  blow. 
But  this  is  not  the  only  thing  that  must  be  considered.  The 
indirect  result  of  the  effort  of  Mr.  Wilson  is  incalculably 
harmful  if  we  take  into  account  the  enormous  number  of 
poor  people  who  in  Europe  had  invested  their  savings  in 
the  government  bonds  of  Mexico,  which  for  so  many  years 
had  been  esteemed  as  securities  of  the  first  order. 

But  the  interventionist  policy  of  the  President  arrived 
at  its  culmination  in  the  case  of  the  Tampico  incident. 

This  important  Mexican  port  was  found  practically  be- 
sieged on  the  land  side  by  the  Carranza  forces.  Battles 
were  taking  place  daily  and  the  city  was  under  martial 
law.  Consequently,  no  one  was  permitted  to  enter  or 
leave  without  express  authority  of  the  commanding  gen- 
eral. 

Under  these  conditions  a  boat  belonging  to  the  Ameri- 
can war  vessel  "Dolphin"  approached  one  of  the  wharves 
and  the  men  who  manned  it  disembarked  without  exhibit- 
ing the  requisite  permit.  The  Mexican  subaltern  officer 
who  commanded  the  detachment  charged  with  guarding 
this  wharf,  understood  that  he  must  comply  with  his  duty 
in  applying  the  general  order  which  had  been  given  in 
respect  to  exits  and  entrances,  and  he  arrested  the  boat's 
crew.  These  were  conducted  to  headquarters,  but  a  few 
minutes  afterward  they  were  placed  at  liberty.  After 
their  liberation,  an  apology  followed  which  the  com- 
mander of  the  Mexican  forces  in  Tampico  gave  to  Admiral 
Mayo,  commander  of  the  American  squadron  stationed  in 
the  port.  The  admiral  did  not  consider  this  sufficient 
satisfaction  and  asked  that  the  American  flag  be  saluted 


20 

with  twenty-one  guns,  which  the  Federal  Commander  in 
Tampico  did  not  consider  himself  authorized  to  concede. 

Both  governments  being  informed,  the  matter  was 
made  a  diplomatic  one.  Huerta  hastened  to  give  a  per- 
sonal satisfaction  to  the  Charge  D'Affaires  of  the  United 
States  and  ordered  that  the  officer  who  had  made  the  ar- 
rest of  the  American  marines  should  be  punished.  On  his 
part,  President  Wilson  resolved  to  exact  the  salute  re- 
quired by  Admiral  Mayo.  Huerta  acceded  to  this  in  prin- 
ciple on  condition  that  the  American  government  should 
consent  to  salute — also  with  twenty-one  guns — the  Mexi- 
can flag.  President  Wilson  accepted  this  condition  and 
then  Huerta,  with  incredible  stupidity,  insisted  that  be- 
fore the  salutes  were  given,  a  protocol  should  be  signed 
by  both  governments. 

These  delays  afforded  to  President  Wilson  an  excep- 
tional opportunity  to  crush  Huerta  and  he  did  not  waste 
it.  On  the  20th  of  April,  1914,  he  presented  himself  be- 
fore the  Congress  and  stated  that  he  had  resolved  "to  in- 
sist that  the  flag  of  the  United  States  should  be  saluted," 
and  at  the  same  time  he  asked  the  approval  of  Congress 
to  use  the  armed  forces  of  the  United  States  for  the  pur- 
pose of  obtaining  from  Huerta  "the  fullest  recognition  of 
the  rights  and  dignity  of  the  United  States." 

If  the  conduct  of  President  Wilson  in  this  case  is  com- 
pared with  what  has  been  followed  in  analogous  cases,  al- 
though infinitely  more  grave,  it  will  be  clearly  seen  that 
in  the  Tampico  incident  and  in  two  other  utterly  trivial 
incidents  which  Mr.  Wilson  mentioned  in  his  message  to 
Congress,  there  was  not  the  shadow  of  a  pretext  to  launch 
against  Huerta  all  the  weight  of  the  military  forces  of  the 
United  States. 

Let  us  mention  two  of  the  cases  alluded  to. 
First :  All  of  the  dailies  published  on  the  29th  of  June, 
1916,  the  note  of  the  American  government  to  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  government  apropos  of  the  attack  by  an  Aus- 
trian submarine  on  the  American  steamship,  "Petrolite/' 
The  event  had  such  a  character  of  gravity  that  the  Ameri- 


21 

can  government  considered  the  conduct  of  the  commander 
of  the  submarine  "as  a  deliberate  insult  to  the  flag  of  the 
United  States."  Well,  then,  a  "deliberate  insult"  to  the 
American  flag  was  an  offense  more  grave  than  that  of 
Tampico,  all  of  whose  circumstances  proved  that  if  there 
were  an  "insult,"  it  could  not  be  considered  "deliberate." 
Nevertheless,  in  the  case  of  the  Petrolite  an  apology  only 
was  demanded,  it  being  added  that  the  American  govern- 
ment expected  it  from  the  Austrian  government,  "whose 
high  sense  of  honor  *  *  would  not,  it  is  believed,  per- 
mit an  indignity  to  be  offered  to  the  flag  of  a  friendly 
power."  We  do  not  know  whether  the  apology  was  given 
or  not;  but  contrast  the  attitude  of  President  Wilson  in 
respect  to  a  powerful  nation  from  which  only  an  apology 
was  expected  when  it  was  a  question  of  "deliberate  insults" 
and  "indignities  committed  against  the  flag  of  the  United 
States,"  with  the  brave  attitude  assumed  against  the  gov- 
ernment of  Huerta  which  committed  no  deliberate  insult 
to  the  flag.  In  the  first  case,  an  apology  is  asked.  In  the 
second  case  the  apology  given  was  repudiated  and  an  act 
waa  exacted  which,  under  the  circumstances,  was  humiliat- 
ing and,  finally,  force  was  made  use  of  against  the  weak. 

Second:  On  the  18th  of  June,  1916,  a  boat  from  the 
American  cruiser  "Annapolis"  anchored  in  the  port  of 
Mazatlan,  Mexico,  directed  itself  to  the  wharf  in  search 
of  refugee  Americans.  Two  officers  of  the  "Annapolis," 
who  went  in  the  boat,  were  arrested  immediately  when 
they  set  foot  upon  land  and  were  conducted  between  Car- 
ranza  soldiers,  who  heaped  vile  insults  upon  them  and 
threatened  to  shoot  them.  Finally  the  officers  were  placed 
at  liberty  and  obliged  to  re-embark;  but  when  the  boat 
pushed  off  from  the  wharf  the  Carrancistas  fired  upon  it 
and  killed  one  of  the  "blue-jackets."  Compare  this  in- 
cident, in  which  two  American  officers  were  subjected  to 
indignities  and  a  marine  who  wore  the  uniform  of  the 
United  States  was  murdered,  with  the  occurrence  at  Tam- 
pico. Nevertheless,  the  Mazatlan  incident  was  not  made 


22 

the  motive  of  any  intemperate  discussion  nor  was  any 
salute  to  the  flag  exacted  nor,  as  it  appears,  any  especial 
apology.  It  was  not  Huerta  who  was  involved  but  Car- 
ranza,  favored  and  protected  by  President  Wilson,  and, 
therefore,  the  offended  flag  remained  offended,  the  in- 
sulted officials  remained  with  their  insults,  and  the  dead 
blue- jacket  remained  dead. 

The  message  which  the  President  read  before  the  Con- 
gress on  account  of  the  incident  of  Tampico  is  a  notable 
rhetorical  production  in  which  the  true  intention  of  its 
author  is  ably  concealed.  It  would  have  been  very  crude 
on  his  part  to  say  that  his  object  in  soliciting  the  approval 
of  Congress  to  use  the  forces  of  the  United  States  was 
that  of  overthrowing  Huerta.  Surely,  even  the  most  sub- 
missive Democrats  would  have  mutinied  at  having  sus- 
pected such  a  proposition,  and  the  President,  as  it  ap- 
pears, foresaw  the  danger  and  very  ably  avoided  it  by 
choosing  the  pretext  of  an  insult  to  the  flag. 

It  is  also  clear  that  the  American  people  in  general  and 
the  Congress  in  particular  fell  into  the  net,  for  even  to- 
day we  hear  repeatedly  these  questions:  "Why  was  not 
the  flag  finally  saluted?"  "WThy,  if  Congress  resolved  that 
the  President  was  acting  with  justification,  'in  the  em- 
ployment of  the  armed  forces  of  the  United  States  to  en- 
force his  demand  for  unequivocal  amends  for  certain  af- 
fronts and  indignities  committed  against  the  United 
States,'  why,  they  ask,  were  those  amends  never  ob- 
tained?" and  finally  "Why  did  President  Wilson  renounce 
expressly  in  the  conference  of  Niagara  Falls,  all  right  to 
exact  such  unequivocal  amends  ?"  The  indignation  of  the 
members  of  Congress,  especially  of  the  Democrats,  had 
acute  manifestations  when  the  resolution  solicited  by  the 
President  was  under  discussion.  Some  said  that  it  was 
indispensable  that  "Old  Glory"  remain  "unsullied  and  un- 
spotted from  insult  and  dishonor  by  greasers  in  Mexico." 
(See  Congressional  Eecord,  April  22,  1914.)  Mr.  Under- 
wood, the  distinguished  Democratic  leader,  pronounced 


23 

these  unequivocal  words:  "The  flag  has  been  dishonored 
in  a  foreign  land,  on  foreign  soil.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  comes  here  to-day  and  though  he  has  not 
asked  you  to  declare  war,  asks  you  to  sustain  him  in  using 
the  military  forces  of  our  government  to  require  a  decent 
respect  for  that  flag  and  an  honorable  consideration  of 
your  government." 

Before  both  houses  of  Congress  had  passed  a  resolution, 
Vera  Cruz  was  taken  by  the  naval  forces  of  the  United 
States.  Without  previous  declaration  of  war — because  it 
was  said  that  this  war  was  not  war — the  city  was  as- 
saulted. Nineteen  American  marines  were  killed  and  more 
than  seventy  wounded.  More  than  one  hundred  Mexicans 
lost  their  lives. 

A  few  weeks  afterward  Mr.  Wilson  delivered  an  oration 
in  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard  at  the  funeral  of  the  victims 
of  his  aversion  to  Huerta.  There  were  the  nineteen 
corpses  of  the  poor,  brave  boys  whom  the  President  sent 
to  die  in  the  streets  of  Vera  Cruz,  not  to  avenge  an  out- 
rage to  their  flag  nor  to  cause  the  dignity  of  the  United 
States  to  be  respected — things  which  the  President  never 
again  mentioned — but  to  do  for  the  Mexican  people  the 
"service"  of  freeing  them  from  one  who  had  had  the  au- 
dacity to  refuse  to  submit  to  the  dictates  of  President  Wil- 
son as  to  the  kind  of  government  which  Mexico  ought  to 
have. 

"We  have  gone  down  to  Mexico  to  serve  mankind,"  said 
the  President  in  the  presence  of  the  nineteen  dead  blue- 
jackets ;  "we  want  to  serve  the  Mexicans"  ...  "a  war  of 
service  is  a  thing  in  which  it  is  a  proud  thing  to  die." 

In  spite  of  this  interesting  confession  of  President 
Wilson,  a  less  romantic  motive  has  been  given  for  the  oc- 
cupation of  Vera  Cruz  than  that  it  was  "a  war  to  serve 
mankind."  It  has  been  said,  in  effect,  that  the  real  pur- 
pose of  the  President  was  to  prevent  the  steamship  Ypir- 
anga,  which  brought  from  Europe  a  cargo  of  arms  and 
ammunition  for  Huerta,  from  delivering  its  precious 


24 

cargo.  Secretary  Lane,  in  the  unfortunate  defense  which 
he  makes  of  the  "Mexican  Policy"  of  the  President,  which 
we  have  mentioned  above,  says  that  as  Huerta  continued 
resisting  the  revolution  headed  by  Carranza,  Mr.  Wilson 
decided  to  prevent  him  from  receiving  the  cargo  of  the 
Ypiranga ;  an  explanation  which  reveals  the  complicity  of 
the  American  government  with  a  revolution  whose  mili- 
tary hero  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  famous  bandit, 
"Pancho"  Villa. 

But  the  most  singular  thing  in  this  case  is  the  fact  that 
the  Ypiranga,  after  entering  the  port  of  Vera  Cruz,  turned 
her  prow  to  Puerto  Mexico,  a  few  miles  further  south, 
where  she  tranquilly  delivered  to  Huerta  all  the  arms  and 
ammunition  which  she  brought  on  board!  Was  it  worth 
the  pains  for  this  result  to  sacrifice  nearly  two  hundred 
Mexican  and  American  lives! 

It  is  important  to  finish  with  this  deception.  President 
Wilson  did  not  occupy  Vera  Cruz  to  avenge  the  outrage  to 
the  flag,  as  the  Congress  innocently  believed,  and  as  the 
majority  of  the  American  people  still  believe.  President 
Wilson  occupied  Vera  Cruz,  as  he  said  metaphorically, 
"to  serve  mankind,"  or,  as  Secretary  Lane  says  without 
metaphor :  "to  show  Mexico  that  we  were  in  earnest  in  our 
demand  that  Huerta  must  go."  (Interview  in  the  New 
York  World,  July  16,  1916,  above  cited.)  This  fact  is 
shamelessly  admitted  in  the  Democratic  campaign  text 
book  of  1916! 

No  one  can  find  in  the  constitution  or  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  the  precepts  of  international  law,  the 
slightest  foundation  for  these  acts,  nor  in  any  code  of 
morals  a  justification  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  lives  that 
these  acts  demanded. 

Was  Huerta  responsible  for  any  crime  against  the 
United  States?  It  would  be  difficult  to  prove  it.  He  had, 
on  the  contrary,  amply  protected  the  lives  and  interests  of 
Americans  in  Mexico.  If  Huerta  had  committed  crimes 
against  his  own  country  it  did  not  belong  to  the  President 


25 

of  the  United  States  to  punish  him.  Within  one  year 
after  having  abandoned  Mexico,  the  tragic  dictator  dis- 
embarked publicly  in  the  port  of  New  York,  opened  an 
office  on  Broadway,  was  "lionized"  by  the  newspapers, 
while  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  sacrificed  so 
many  lives  to  punish  him  in  Mexico,  was  impotent  to  lay 
the  hand  of  a  single  policeman  upon  the  "usurper."  The 
laws  of  the  United  States  served  him  as  a  shield,  and  only 
in  the  land  where  those  same  laws  could  not  exercise  their 
protective  action  was  he  made  to  feel  the  arbitrary  power 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  all  its  rigor. 

Huerta  was  persecuted  later  when  he  directed  himself 
to  the  South  to  promote — surely  without  the  ability  to 
carry  it  to  a  head — a  revolution  in  Mexico.  Either  through 
stupidity  or  because  his  histrionic  temperament  induced 
him  to  play  the  part  of  a  martyr,  he  fell  into  the  net  of 
the  laws  of  neutrality  and  died  a  prisoner  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States. 


26 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

PRESIDENT  WILSON,  PROTECTOR  OF  THE  REVOLUTIONISTS. 

Whoever  may  have  followed  the  development  of  the 
revolution  against  Huerta  is  acquainted  with  the  character- 
istic features  of  this  movement.  The  revolutionists  sig- 
nalized themselves  by  the  most  cruel  manifestations  of 
savagery,  by  a  ferocity  without  limits.  It  is  true  that 
Huerta  is  as  responsible  as  Carranza  for  the  inhuman  act 
of  sacrificing  prisoners  of  war,  whom  both  contending 
parties  put  to  death  without  mercy ;  but  the  forces  of  Car- 
ranza committed  other  excesses,  such  as  the  sacking  of 
towns,  attacks  against  the  honor  of  women,  profanation 
of  temples,  the  assassination  of  pacific  inhabitants,  the  ex- 
pulsion en  masse  of  foreigners,  and  destruction  by  fire 
and  dynamite. 

To  such  a  degree  did  these  horrors  arrive,  that  at  one 
time  General  Scott,  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  American  Army, 
presented  to  his  "friend,"  Francisco  Villa,  the  campaign 
regulations  of  the  United  States  Army,  to  the  end  that  the 
constitutionalist  bandit,  named  a  general  by  Carranza, 
should  try  to  imitate  the  proceedings  of  civilized  armies  in 
time  of  war. 

Neither  the  generous  pains  of  General  Scott  nor  the 
efforts  of  some  cultivated  officers  who,  like  General  An- 
geles, were  commanding  in  the  revolutionary  files,  pro- 
duced any  results.  The  "generals"  born  of  the  revolution 
were  the  first  in  committing  every  kind  of  excesses  against 
honor,  life,  religion  and  property. 

It  was  explicable  that  the  people  in  general,  above  all, 
the  cultivated  or  wealthy  classes,  would  have  more  horror 
for  the  revolution  than  for  the  dictatorship  of  Huerta, 
and  that  they  saw  with  astonishment  that  the  American 
Government  should  offer  its  aid  to  the  "constitutionalists." 

This  aid  at  first  was  indirect,  in  the  form  explained  in 


27 

Chapter  III,  that  is,  by  means  of  a  series  of  acts  hostile 
to  Huerta ;  in  the  beginning  a  moral,  and  later,  a  military, 
hostility. 

Finally  the  support  was  direct  and  frank. 

A  short  time  after  the  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz  by 
the  forces  of  the  United  States,  the  city  of  Tampico, 
evacuated  by  the  federal  troops,  was  taken  by  Carranza 
forces.  Although  the  American  Government  had  just 
re-established,  for  a  brief  period,  the  embargo  against 
the  exportation  of  materials  of  war — probably  because  of 
a  lukewarm  protest  from  Carranza  on  account  of  the  oc- 
cupation of  Vera  Cruz — the  Carranza  agents  in  New 
York  made  openly  and  publicly  a  large  shipment  of  muni- 
tions by  the  steamship  "Antilla, "  destined  to  Tampico. 

Huerta  protested  against  the  violation  of  the  embargo 
and  announced  his  purpose  of  blockading  Tampico  to 
prevent  the  munitions  from  arriving  at  their  destination. 
To  make  his  determination  effective,  he  dispatched  two 
gun-boats  to  Tampico. 

The  American  Government,  on  learning  this,  declared 
that  Tampico  was  an  open  port  and  that  it  must  be  kept 
open.  The  Mexican  gun-boats  were  followed  closely  by 
powerful  American  cruisers,  which  carried  the  order  to 
prevent  the  establishment  of  the  blockade. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  a  foreign  government 
could  proceed  in  this  manner  without  committing  an  act 
of  intervention  in  a  business  of  strict  internal  regulation. 
What  would  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  said 
if  the  British  Government  had  declared,  during  the  Civil 
War,  that  the  ports  of  the  South  must  be  opened  to  traffic, 
and  if  it  had  caused  its  decision  to  be  respected  by  means 
of  the  powerful  British  fleet? 

The  offer  of  the  Government  of  Huerta  to  restrict 
the  blockade  to  the  introduction  of  arms  and  munitions 
for  his  enemies  *  served  for  nothing.  Washington  re- 
mained inflexible  and  the  Dictator  yielded  to  superior 


28 

power.    A  few  days  afterwards  the  "Antilla"  delivered 
her  cargo  into  the  hands  of  the  constitutionalists. 

There  could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  regarding  the 
attitude  of  President  Wilson.  He  wished  not  only  the 
elimination  of  Huerta,  but  the  triumph  of  the  faction 
then  represented  by  Villa  and  Carranza.  A  new  and  un- 
equivocal confirmation  of  this  fact  was  given  in  the  con- 
ference of  Niagara  Falls. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  a  few  days  after  the  occu- 
pation of  Vera  Cruz  the  diplomatic  representatives  of 
Brazil,  Chili,  and  the  Argentine  Republic,  in  Washing- 
ton, tendered  their  good  offices  to  resolve  the  difficulties 
between  Mexico  and  the  United  States.  The  result  of  this 
offer  was  the  conference  of  Niagara  Falls  which  was  at- 
tended by  representatives  of  the  Government  of  Huerta 
and  of  the  American  Government. 

The  American  representatives  went  to  the  conference 
with  the  purpose  of  obtaining,  by  means  of  an  inter- 
national agreement,  the  establishment  in  Mexico  of  a 
government  presided  over  by  one  of  the  constitutionalist 
leaders.  They  did  not  go,  as  was  natural  to  suppose,  to 
seek  any  means  of  putting  an  end  to  the  incident  created 
by  the  supposed  outrage  to  the  American  flag,  and  to 
obtain  the  reparations  which  the  Congress  exacted  when 
authorizing  the  President  to  make  use  of  the  army  and 
navy  of  the  United  States.  This  incident  had  been  re- 
duced, by  means  of  enchantment,  to  such  a  degree  of 
insignificance,  that  the  American  delegates  solemnly  re- 
nounced all  right,  which  the  United  States  might  have, 
to  obtain  reparation  of  any  kind  whatever  for  the  acts 
which  the  President  qualified  as  highly  offensive  to  the 
dignity  of  his  country  and  to  the  honor  of  the  American 
flag! 

From  the  beginning  of  the  conference  it  could  be 
seen  that  the  only  purpose  of  the  mediation,  so  far  as 
it  interested  the  United  States,  was  the  expulsion  of 


29 

Huerta  and  the  delivery  of  the  Mexican  Government  to 
those  protected  by  President  Wilson,  that  is  to  say,  to  the 
Constitutionalists.  "The  American  Government  SEEKS 
ONLY  to  assist  in  securing  the  pacification  of  Mexico," — 
that  is  to  say,  the  end  of  the  contest  between  Mexicans, 
a  matter  which  did  not  belong  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  to  arrange,  nor  could  it  be  a  legitimate  mo- 
tive for  an  international  agreement,  as  it  was  a  matter 
of  interior  regulation.  "To  bring  that  war  to  a  close, 
to  restore  peace  and  constitutional  government,  is  the 
aim  of  the  President,  and  that  end  can  only  be  obtained 
by  consulting  the  just  wish  of  the  constitutionalists,  who 
are  not  only  in  numerical  majority,  but  are  now  the 
dominant  force  in  the  country.' '  When  the  Mexican  dele- 
gates stated  that  Huerta  would  resign  the  power  in  favor 
of  any  man  who  might  have  been  neutral  in  the  Mexican 
quarrels,  the  American  delegates  insisted  that  the  provi- 
sional presidency  of  Mexico  must  be  confided  "not  to  a 
neutral"  but  to  a  man  "acceptable  to  the  constitutional- 
ists," because  "such  a  man,  and  only  such  a  man,  can 
reasonably  be  expected  to  have  the  confidence  and  respect 
of  the  entire  country."  (All  the  above  words  between 
quotations  are  taken  from  the  declarations  of  the  Ameri- 
can delegates  published  on  the  19th  of  July,  1914.) 

It  is  proper  to  observe  that  the  statement  of  the 
American  delegates  that  the  constitutionalists  were  in 
numerical  majority  was  a  gross  untruth  which  revealed 
the  profound  ignorance  that  distinguishes  the  American 
Government  in  respect  to  the  elements  of  the  Mexican 
problem.  This  ignorance  is  fully  demonstrated  by  the 
single  noted  fact  that  after  two  years  of  triumph  of  the 
revolution,  in  which  the  Government  of  Mexico  has  been 
in  the  hands  of  the  first  of  the  constitutionalist  leaders, 
to-wit:  Carranza,  "such  a  man"  has  not  obtained  "the 
confidence  and  respect  of  the  entire  country." 

Carranza  had  been  invited  by  the  mediators  to  attend 
the  conference ;  but  under  the  condition  that  an  armistice 


30 

with  Huerta  would  be  arranged.  The  condition  was  arro- 
gantly rejected.  Carranza  saw  clearly  that  his  situation 
would  not  be  bettered  by  accepting  the  invitation  of  the 
A.  B.  C.  conference;  he  was  sufficiently  astute  to  leave 
the  entire  task  to  the  American  Government,  as  all  the 
diplomatic  pressure  which  President  Wilson  exercised 
was  for  the  benefit  of  Carranza,  and  as  Carranza  counted, 
moreover,  on  the  incommensurable  military  aid  which  the 
United  States  was  giving  him  by  the  occupation  of  Vera 
Cruz. 

Huerta  could  not  resist  this  aggregate  of  adverse  cir- 
cumstances and  he  fell. 

A  most  honorable  man,  Judge  of  the  Federal  Supreme 
Court,  who  had  conserved  an  independent  attitude  during 
all  the  civil  strife,  Sr.  Carvajal,  succeeded  Huerta.  Car- 
vajal saw  that  it  was  senseless  to  oppose  the  combined 
forces  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  revolution,  and,  in 
consequence,  he  sent  delegates  to  Carranza  to  invite  the 
latter  to  take  pacific  possession  of  the  government,  with- 
out any  other  condition  of  fundamental  character  than 
that  of  respecting  life,  liberty  and  property. 

It  was  not  the  purpose  of  Carvajal  to  protect,  from 
the  wrath  of  the  revolutionists,  the  assassins  of  Madero, 
or  to  protect  those  who  had  committed  crimes  during  the 
seventeen  months  of  the  dictatorship  of  Huerta.  All 
these  had  fled  from  the  country  or  were  safe  in  Vera  Cruz 
under  the  efficient  protection  of  General  Funston.  What 
Carvajal  desired  was  to  protect  the  City  of  Mexico  and 
the  richer  and  more  populated  portion  of  the  Republic 
from  the  excesses  which  characterized  the  constitutionalist 
generals  and  soldiers,  who  had  given  proofs  of  an  in- 
credible spirit  of  cruelty  and  of  rapine  in  all  the  regions 
of  the  Republic  which  they  had  traversed. 

In  the  beginning  the  American  Government  supported 
the  successor  of  Huerta  in  his  legitimate  efforts;  but 
Carranza  showed  himself  implacable.  He  insisted  upon  an 


31 

"unconditional  surrender"  and  absolutely  refused  to  bind 
himself  to  anything. 

In  the  face  of  this  attitude,  Carvajal  thought  of  resist- 
ing, not  to  conserve  an  official  investiture  which  he  him- 
self considered  unsustainable,  but  to  protect  the  most 
sacred  rights  of  Mexicans  and  foreigners.  He  had  at  his 
disposition  powerful  contingents  which  still  remained  of 
the  Federal  army,  and  he  counted  on  the  sympathy  of 
the  people  who  looked  with  horror  upon  the  approach  of 
their  "liberators."  By  an  energetic  and  decisive  attitude 
Carvajal,  perhaps,  might  have  obtained  what  the  brutal 
obstinacy  of  Carranza  refused. 

What  could  rationally  be  expected,  in  such  a  grave 
contingency,  of  a  man  so  devoted  to  the  "service  of  hu- 
manity" as  President  "Wilson?  Having  assumed  the  part 
of  protector  of  Carranza,  it  was  to  be  supposed  that  he 
would  insist  in  the  most  energetic  manner  that  his  protege" 
should  concede  the  moderate  and  just  conditions  of  Car- 
vajal. 

Nevertheless  the  very  opposite  happened.  Carvajal 
received  official  notice  that  the  American  Government  de- 
manded that  he  should  surrender  unconditionally  to  Car- 
ranza, To  oppose  this  demand  would  have  been  madness. 
Carvajal  abandoned  the  capital,  of  which  possession  was 
laken  a  few  days  later  by  the  Carranza  hordes. 

What  happened  then  is  something  that  the  American 
Government  has  not  dared  to  publish.  The  few  honorable 
constitutionalists  shudder  to  recall  it.  The  Department 
of  State  has  in  its  archives  the  official  information  of  the 
outrages  committed  by  the  so-called  constitutionalists  in 
the  great  capital  of  Mexico.  Never  had  the  city  suffered 
such  indignities,  not  even  in  the  blackest  days  of  our  revo- 
lutionary life.  Even  the  diplomatic  representatives  of 
the  foreign  governments  were  robbed  by  the  Carranza 
"generals"  and  by  the  mob  of  ravenous  politicians  that 
followed  Carranza;  even  the  Brazilian  Minister,  official 
representative  of  the  United  States,  was  robbed. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  TRIUMPHANT  "  CONSTITUTION ALISTS"  AND  THE 
RECOGNITION. 

The  policy  of  President  Wilson  had  been  crowned  by 
two  positive  successes:  the  elimination  of  Huerta  and 
the  triumph  of  the  "Constitutionalists." 

To  obtain  these  results,  the  President  had  sacrificed  in 
Vera  Cruz  the  lives  of  some  twenty  of  his  countrymen  and 
had  spent  some  millions  of  dollars,  which  the  tax-paying 
Americans  paid;  but  these  sacrifices  were  puny  compared 
with  the  enormous  losses  which  the  triumph  of  the  "Con- 
stitutionalists" occasioned,  losses  in  lives,  in  property  and 
honor  which  the  inhabitants  of  Mexico,  foreigners  and 
Mexicans,  equally  suffered.  The  quota  of  American  citi- 
zens in  this  disaster  is,  surely,  not  insignificant. 

And  all  this,  for  what?  The  President  has  explained 
it:  "To  serve  mankind,  to  serve  the  Mexicans,  to  help 
Mexico  save  herself  and  serve  her  people." 

There  would  occur  to  the  least  informed  person  upon 
theories  of  government,  this  inquiry:  "What  has  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  do  with  the  quarrels 
of  the  Mexicans?  Because  it  is  simple  common  sense,  if 
not  an  axiom,  that  the  American  Government  was  not 
instituted  to  act  outside  of  its  territory,  in  the  service  of 
humanity  or  the  Mexicans,  as  the  man  who  temporarily 
occupies  the  White  House  may  understand  this  service; 
but  rather  to  act  in  the  service  of  Americans  who  may 
be  in  a  foreign  country  and  of  the  legitimate  interests  of 
the  latter. 

But  a  singular  thing:  in  all  this  history  of  the  intru- 
sion of  President  Wilson  in  Mexico,  there  is  not  a  single 
act  calculated  to  protect  Americans  in  that  country.  All 
that  appears  to  have  inspired  the  President's  activities  has 
been  a  series  of  strange  motives,  such,  for  example,  as  his 


33 

"passion  for  the  submerged  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the 
people  of  that  Republic,  who  are  struggling  toward 
liberty."  (Interview  in  "The  Saturday  Evening  Post," 
May  23rd,  1914.) 

Let  it  not  be  understood  that  the  author  of  these  lines 
censures  the  President  for  not  having  concerned  himself 
with  the  protection  of  Americans  in  Mexico,  since  that 
is  not  incumbent  upon  the  writer,  as  a  Mexican;  but  if 
attention  is  called  to  this  circumstance,  it  is  only  to  em- 
phasize the  absurdity  of  the  position  taken  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  who,  instead  of  looking  after  the 
welfare  of  his  countrymen,  has  concerned  himself  with 
promoting  the  welfare  of  the  Mexicans,  with  results  so 
completely  negative  that  it  can  be  affirmed  with  entire 
truth  that  never  has  Mexico  been  poorer,  hungrier  and 
more  oppressed  by  an  anarchical  and  criminal  faction  than 
at  this  very  day.  (September,  1916.)  The  present  Mexi- 
can Government — if  it  is  to  be  called  such — a  creature  of 
President  Wilson,  has  been  declared  by  Secretary 
Lansing  "not  worthy  of  the  name, "  since  it  has  proved  its 
"neglect"  and  its  "failure"  to  fulfill  "the  paramount  obli- 
gation for  which  governments  are  instituted,"  to-wit,  "the 
protection  of  life  and  property."  (Note  of  Secretary  of 
State  to  Carranza,  June  20th,  1916.) 

With  the  triumph  of  the  "Constitutionalists"  the 
object  for  which  President  Wilson  took  Vera  Cruz,  the  ex- 
pulsion of  Huerta,  was  attained.  In  reality,  that  object 
would  have  been  fulfilled  when  the  dictator  left  the  coun- 
try in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Carvajal.  In  any  case,  it  was 
said  that  the  whole  country  was  dominated  by  the  revo- 
lution when  Carranza  occupied  the  capital  of  the  Republic 
in  August,  1914,  and,  therefore,  Vera  Cruz,  should  have 
been  delivered  at  that  time  by  the  American  Govern- 
ment. 

The  apparent  explanation  of  the  stay  of  the  American 
troops  in  Vera  Cruz  after  the  triumph  of  "Constitutional- 
ism" was  the  rupture  between  Villa  and  Carranza.  The 


34 

first  demanded  that  the  plan  of  the  revolution  should  be 
complied  with,  which  was  the  return  to  constitutional 
government,  while  Carranza  pretended  to  continue  being 
"First  Chief"  with  unlimited  powers. 

It  was  explicable  that  Mr.  Wilson  should  be  perplexed 
and  that  he  should  decide  not  to  abandon  the  base  which 
he  was  occupying  in  Mexican  territory,  when  a  second 
civil  war  was  threatening  between  the  same  men  for  whose 
sake  Vera  Cruz  had  been  occupied.  Mr.  Wilson  then  de- 
termined to  send  to  Mexico,  as  his  confidential  agent,  a 
learned  and  honorable  man,  acquainted  with  the  country 
and  who  spoke  the  Spanish  language  with  perfection, 
Mr.  Paul  Fuller. 

The  report  of  Mr.  Fuller  justified  the  attitude  of 
Villa.  For  the  first  time  the  bandit, — well  advised  by 
upright  and  patriotic  men — had  reason  on  his  side.  Every- 
one who  may  be  acquainted  with  the  opinions  of  Mr. 
Fuller  knows  that  the  latter  condemned  Carranza  whom 
he  declared  "an  impossibility, "  devoured-  by  personal  am- 
bition to  rule. 

And  this  was  natural  and  logical.  Carranza  could  not 
at  sixty  and  more  years  of  age  transform  himself  into  an 
apostle  of  liberty  and  into  a  reformer.  He  had  passed 
twenty-five  years  of  his  life  serving  with  humility  the 
man  whom  today  he  calls,  with  disdain,  the  Tyrant  of 
Mexico,  Porfirio  Diaz.  Carranza  was  a  senator  under  the 
Government  of  Diaz  and  never  did  anything  else  in  the 
Senate  except  to  approve,  without  the  slightest  protest, 
the  recommendations  of  that  tyrant,  whom  today  he  de- 
nies. In  the  two  years  in  which  he  was  the  Governor  of 
the  State  of  Coahuila,  Carranza  promoted  nothing -which 
would  reveal  him  as  the  reformer  which  he  now  pretends 
to  be,  nor  did  he  do  anything  for  the  political,  moral  or 
economic  advancement  of  the  people. 

Not  only  this,  but  Carranza,  enemy  of  progressive 
innovations,  was  the  only  Governor  who  opposed  having 
schools  established  in  the  States  under  the  auspices  of 


35 

the  Federal  Government,  when  President  Madero,  in 
execution  of  a  law  initiated  in  the  time  of  Diaz,  was  try- 
ing to  diffuse  elementary  instruction  in  a  country  in  which 
eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  population  does  not  know  how 
to  read  or  write. 

This  is  the  true  Carranza,  the  man  who,  together  with 
Villa  received  the  aid  of  the  United  States  in  seizing  the 
Government  of  Mexico. 

It  was  explicable,  we  repeat,  that  in  view  of  the  re- 
ports of  Mr.  Fuller  and  of  the  rupture  between  Villa  and 
Carranza,  President  Wilson  should  hesitate  to  evacuate 
Vera  Cruz.  It  would  not,  in  effect,  "have  served  the 
Mexicans,"  if  he  abandoned  them  in  the  midst  of  a  fright- 
ful anarchy. 

But  the  Congressional  elections  were  approaching  in 
the  United  States  and  thus  it  was  necessary  to  present  a 
triumph  of  the  policy  of  "watchful  waiting."  The  Presi- 
dent announced  on  the  15th  of  September  that  Vera 
Cruz  would  be  evacuated  "in  view  of  the  entire  removal 
of  the  circumstances  which  were  thought  to  justify  the 
occupation."  The  evacuation  was  carried  through,  never- 
theless, two  months  later  when  Carranza,  fugitive  before 
the  pursuit  of  Villa,  arrived  at  the  Gulf  coast  and  would 
soon  have  abandoned  the  country.  President  Wilson 
charged  himself  with  saving  him  by  delivering  to  him 
Vera  Cruz. 

The  possession  of  this  important  port  and  of  the  region 
round-about  permitted  Carranza  to  rehabilitate  himself, 
and  his  General  Obregon  to  initiate  an  active  campaign 
against  Villa.  Civil  war  was  again  kindled  with  savage 
fury. 

In  the  face  of  the  horrors  of  this  struggle  and  the  ruin 
which  it  brought  for  the  Mexican  people,  President  Wil- 
son believed  himself  obliged  to  intervene  again.  With 
an  innocent  good  faith  which  demonstrates  his  want  of 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  this  class  of  contests  in 
Latin-American  countries,  the  President  directed  on  June 


36 

2nd,  1915,  a  solemn  admonition  to  the  leaders  of  the 
divided  "Constitutionalism,"  to  whom  he  said:  "I  there- 
fore publicly  and  very  solemnly  call  upon  the  leaders  of 
faction  in  Mexico  to  act,  to  act  together  and  to  act 
promptly  for  the  relief  and  redemption  of  their  pros- 
trate country." 

Carranza  and  Villa,  by  way  of  reply,  impressed  upon 
the  struggle  a  greater  character  of  ferocity.  When  the 
results  of  the  war  began  to  be  adverse  to  the  faction  of 
Villa,  the  latter  addressed  himself  to  the  American  Gov- 
ernment, stating  his  desire  to  comply  with  the  admonition. 
Carranza,  on  his  part,  declared  that  he  was  not  disposed 
to  compromise  with  his  enemies,  nor  to  admit  that  Presi- 
dent Wilson  should  meddle  with  the  internal  affairs  of 
Mexico. 

Lost  in  the  labyrinth,  Mr.  Wilson  called  to  his  aid  six 
countries  of  Latin-America.  The  plenipotentiaries  ac- 
credited to  Washington  from  Brazil,  Chile,  Argentina, 
Bolivia,  Uruguay  and  Gautemala,  were  invited  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  to  a  conference  over  the  internal  affairs 
of  Mexico. 

We  shall  not  make  the  tiresome  relation  of  those  nego- 
tiations, whose  first  result  was  a  joint  note  from  the  seven 
countries  directed  to  the  chiefs  of  factions  in  Mexico  in 
which  the  latter  were  invited  to  compose  their  differences 
in  a  pacific  manner  and  to  organize  a  Government  in 
common  accord. 

Although  the  concurrence  of  six  Latin- American  coun- 
tries made  this  act  of  intervention  in  Mexico's  internal 
affairs  a  little  less  unpalatable  for  the  Mexicans,  Car- 
ranza remained  inflexible  and  haughtily  refused  the  invi- 
tation. The  other  chiefs  of  faction,  for  the  most  part, 
accepted  it. 

To  the  surprise  of  everybody,  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  at  this  moment  changed  its  attitude  and 
resolved  to  recognize  Carranza  as  the  government  de 
facto.  This,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  following  chapter, 


37 

involved  a  stupendous  contradiction  of  the  principles 
which  President  Wilson  had  proclaimed,  to  the  effect 
that  he  would  not  accept  in  Mexico  a  government  which 
should  not  be  in  conformity  with  the  constitution  of  the 
country.  To  reconcile  this  contradictory  position,  Secre- 
tary Lane,  in  his  defense  of  the  President  (Interview  in 
the  New  York  World)  asserts  that  the  recognition  of  Car- 
ranza  was  unanimously  recommended  by  the  six  countries 
of  Latin-America,  and  that  the  United  States  yielded  to 
their  recommendations  in  deference  to  the  Pan-American 
policy  adopted  by  President  Wilson.  Very  much  against 
our  will  we  must  say  that  this  is  not  correct.  The  opinion 
of  the  conference  was  profoundly  divided;  and,  although 
one  of  the  Latin-American  representatives  constituted 
himself  a  champion  of  "Carranzaism,"  it  was  the  reiter- 
ated efforts  of  the  American  Government  which  deter- 
mined the  resolution  of  the  conference  to  recognize  Car- 
ranza. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  legitimate  to  defend  President 
Wilson  in  one  of  his  most  notable  inconsistencies  by 
throwing  the  initial  responsibility  for  the  recognition  of 
Carranza  upon  those  who,  to  proceed  as  they  did,  took 
into  account  the  fact  that  the  United  States  had  a  greater 
interest  in  Mexican  affairs  than  any  other  nation  what- 
ever, even  if  it  were  only  for  the  fact  that  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  Washington,  alone,  belongs  the  responsibility  of 
being  one  of  the  determining  factors  of  the  frightful  situ- 
ation of  moral,  economic  and  political  ruin  to  which  the 
Mexican  people  have  been  reduced. 


38 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OUGHT    THE    AMERICAN    GOVERNMENT    TO    HAVE    RECOG- 
NIZED CARRANZA  ? 

To  answer  the  question  that  is  expressed  in  the  above 
title,  it  is  necessary  to  be  acquainted  with  the  principles 
that  President  Wilson  had  announced  as  to  the  class  of 
government  which,  in  his  opinion,  Mexico  should  have, 
and  then  to  judge  the  recognition  of  Carranza  in  the  light 
of  those  principles. 

The  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that  the  President 
always  considered  Huerta  a  "usurper"  and  so  designated 
him  in  various  official  documents.  Mr.  Wilson  never  ad- 
mitted that  Huerta  was  a  constitutional  President. 

That  Mr.  Wilson  could  recognize  as  the  Government 
of  Mexico  only  one  which  should  be  organized  in  con- 
formity with  the  constitution  of  the  country  is  revealed 
from  the  following  declarations : 

I.  In  the  message  which  the  President  read  before  the 
Congress  on  the  27th  of  August,  1913,  he  said : 

"America  in  particular — America  north  and 
south  and  upon  both  continents — waits  upon  the 
development  of  Mexico;  and  that  development  can 
be  sound  and  lasting  only  if  it  be  the  product  of  a 
genuine  freedom,  a  just  and  ordered  Government 
founded  upon  law  *  *  Mexico  has  a  great  and 
enviable  future  before  her,  if  only  she  choose  and 
attain  the  paths  of  honest  constitutional  govern- 
ment." 

II.  On  account  of  the  violent  dissolution  of  the  Mexi- 
can Congress  consummated  by  Huerta  in  October,  1913, 
Mr.  John  Lind  made  known  to  Huerta  that  President 
Wilson  considered  it  necessary  to  organize  immediately 
"a  constitutional  government"    In  the  same  communica- 
tion Mr.  Lind  indicated  the  convenience  of  the  withdrawal 


39 

ef  Huerta  in  order  to  assure  "absolute  liberty  of  action 
in  the  restoration  of  constitutional  power." 

III.  In  his  message  to  Congress  on  December  2nd, 
1913,  the  President  expressed  himself  thus : 

"We  are  the  friends  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment in  America ;  we  are  more  than  its  friends,  we 
are  its  champions ;  because  in  no  other  way  can  our 
neighbors  work  out  their  development  in  peace  and 
liberty.  MEXICO  HAS  NO  GOVERNMENT." 

"We  shall  not,  I  believe,  be  obliged  to  alter  our 
policy  of  ivatchful  waiting.  And  then,  when  the 
end  comes,  we  shall  hope  to  see  CONSTITUTION- 
AL ORDER  restored  in  distressed  Mexico  by  the 
concert  and  energy  of  such  of  her  leaders  as  prefer 
the  liberty  of  their  people  to  their  own  ambitions.' ' 

IV.  Again,  in  his  special  message  to  Congress  of  the 
20th  of  April,  1914,  the  President  said: 

"If  we  are  to  accept  the  tests  of  its  own  consti- 
tution (Mexico's)  it  has  no  government." 

V.  On  the  23rd  of  April,  1914,  the  President  gave 
some  declarations  to  the  newspapers  in  which  he  asserted 
that  he  would  respect  the   sovereignty  of  Mexico,  and 
added : 

"The  feeling  and  intention  of  the  Government  in 
this  matter  are  not  based  upon  policy.  They  go 
much  deeper  than  that.  They  are  based  upon  a 
genuine  friendship  for  the  Mexican  people  and  a 
profound  interest  in  the  re-establishment  of  a  con- 
stitutional system." 

VI.  In  his  declarations  in  "The  Saturday  Evening 
Post"  of  the  23rd  of  May,  1914,  the  President  expressed 
himself  as  follows : 

"In  any  event,  we  shall  deem  it  our  duty  to 
help  the  Mexican  people  and  ive  shall  continue 


40 

nnf.il  we  have  satisfactory  knowledge  that  peace 
has  been  restored,  that  a  constitutional  government 
is  reorganized,  and  that  the  way  is  open  for  the 
peaceful  reorganization  of  that  harassed  country." 

VII.  On  the  18th  of  June,  1914,  the  American  dele- 
gates to  the  conference  of  Niagara  Falls  gave  the  press 
some   declarations    among   which   appear   the   following 
statements : 

"To  bring  that  war  (Mexico's  civil  war)  to  a 
close,  to  restore  peace  and  CONSTITUTIONAL 
GOVERNMENT,  is  the  aim  of  the  President." 

VIII.  In  the  admonition  of  the  2nd  of  June,  1915, 
hereinbefore  related  (Chapter  V),  are  found  the  following 
words : 

"But  neither  do  they  (the  people  of  the  United 
States)  wish  to  see  utter  ruin  come  upon  her 
(Mexico)  and  they  deem  it  their  duty  as  friends 
and  neighbors  to  lend  any  aid  they  properly  can  to 
any  instrumentality  which  promises  to  be  effective 
in  bringing  about  a  settlement  which  will  embody 
the  real  objects  of  the  revolution, — CONSTITU- 
TIONAL GOVERNMENT  and  the  rights  of  the 
people  *  *  *.  "It  is  time  therefore  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  should  frankly 
state  the  policy  which,  in  these  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances, it  becomes  its  duty  to  adopt.  It  must 
presently  do  what  it  has  not  hitherto  done  or  felt 
at  liberty  to  do,  lend  its  active  moral  support  to 
some  man  or  group  of  men  *  *  *  who  can  rally 
the  suffering  people  of  Mexico  to  their  support  in 
an  effort  to  ignore,  if  they  cannot  unite,  the  warring 
factions  of  the  country,  RETURN  TO  THE  CON- 
STITUTION OF  THE  REPUBLIC  so  long  in 
abeyance  and  SET  UP  A  GOVERNMENT  AT 
MEXICO  CITY  which  the  great  powers  of  the 
world  can  recognize." 


41 

IX.  On  the  14th  of  August,  1915,  Secretary  Lansing 
and  the  six  Latin-American  ambassadors  and  ministers 
directed  to  the  Mexican  factions — as  has  been  said  herein- 
before (Chapter  V.),  a  joint  invitation,  drafted  in  the 
Department  of  State,  and  from  which  the  following  state- 
ments are  transcribed: 

''We,  the  undersigned,  believe  that  if  the  men 
directing  the  armed  movements  in  Mexico — 
whether  political  or  military  chiefs — should  agree 
to  meet,  either  in  person  or  by  delegates,  far  from 
the  sound  of  cannon  and  with  no  other  inspiration 
save  the  thought  of  their  afflicted  land,  there  to  ex- 
change ideas  and  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  coun- 
try— from  such  action  would  undoubtedly  result 
the  strong  and  unyielding  agreement  requisite  to 
the  creation  of  a  provisional  government,  which 
should  adopt  the  first  steps  necessary  to  THE 
CONSTITUTIONAL  RECONSTRUCTION  of 
the  country  and  to  issue  the  first  and  most  essential 
of  them  all,  THE  IMMEDIATE  CALL  TO  GEN- 
ERAL ELECTIONS'.' 

The  exhortations  and  demands  of  President  Wilson 
have  never  concerned  Carranza.  Defaulting  in  the  prom- 
ise which  he  made  to  the  Mexicans  at  initiating  the  revo- 
lution— the  re-establishment  of  constitutional  government 
at  the  elimination  of  Huerta — Carranza  has  pretended  to 
establish  a  dictatorship,  by  the  side  of  which  those  of 
Santa  Anna  and  Huerta  appear  like  the  play  of  children. 

His  first  act  upon  triumphing  was  to  close  the  tribunals 
of  justice.  From  the  few  judges  whom  he  has  installed, 
he  has  exacted  the  oath  of  fulfilling  and  obeying  the 
decrees  of  the  "First  Chief. " 

He  suspended  the  individual  guaranties  of  the  Con- 
stitution and,  consequently,  there  is  no  recourse  in  Mexico 
against  attacks  upon  liberty,  life,  property  or  the  hearth- 
stone. 


42 

He  permitted  and  authorized  the  most  repugnant  at- 
tacks upon  religious  liberty. 

He  muzzled  the  press  and  permitted  only  the  publica- 
tion of  newspapers  that  flattered  the  First  Chief  and  ap- 
plauded all  his  acts. 

He  has  prohibited,  under  severe  penalties,  every  poli- 
tical meeting  or  association. 

He  has  issued  not  less  than  three  decrees  which  amend 
the  Constitution,  itself,  of  the  Republic. 

He  has  disorganized  the  entire  mechanism  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  has  arrogated  to  himself  the  right  to  issue 
fiduciary  money,  which  has  brought  economic  ruin  upon 
the  country  and  upon  thousands  of  Mexicans  and  for- 
eigners. 

This  was  the  character  of  the  "Government"  of  Mexico 
in  October,  1915,  when  it  was  accorded  recognition. 

And  Carranza  did  not  conceal  it.  To  the  courteous 
note  of  the  American  Government  and  the  six  associated 
Latin- American  Governments,  in  which  he  was  requested 
to  arrange  his  differences  with  the  other  chiefs  of  faction 
to  the  end  that  a  constitutional  government  might  be  es- 
tablished in  Mexico  and  elections  might  be  held,  Carranza 
answered  in  bombastic  terms,  declining  the  invitation  and 
requiring  that  he  should  be  recognized.  Carranza  reached 
the  culmination  of  insolence  when  he  sent  to  the  Depart- 
ment of  State  a  decree  of  his  own,  issued  at  Vera  Cruz 
on  the  12th  of  December,  1914,  by  which  he  assumes  all 
the  public  powers  and  in  which  he  invested  himself  ("the 
Chief  of  the  Revolution  is  hereby  expressly  authorized," 
says  the  decree)  with  all  the  faculties  that  may  be 
imagined,  one  of  these  being  that  of  convoking,  when  Car- 
ranza may  esteem  it  proper,  a  Congress  to  amend  and 
ratify — it  is  not  said  whether  it  will  also  be  able  to  re- 
voke— the  military  decrees  which  Carranza  may  issue!! 

President  Wilson  had  said:  "What  Mexico  needs  is 
Constitutional  government;  Mexico  has  no  government  if 
the  tests  of  its  own  constitution  are  to  be  accepted;  my 


43 

aim  is  the  restoration  of  constitutional  government,  be- 
cause in  no  other  way  can  our  neighbors  work  out  their 
development  in  peace  and  liberty 

Carranza  answered:  "Neither  constitutional  govern- 
ment nor  elections;  I  am  above  the  Constitution;  the 
country  will  return  to  legal  rule  when  I  may  wish  and  as 
I  may  wish  it.  Recognize  me !" 

And  President  Wilson  recognized  him. 

The  recognition  was  made  on  the  19th  of  October, 
1915,  in  a  letter  not  only  courteous,  but  affectionate,  which 
the  Secretary  of  State  directed  to  Senor  Arredondo,  Con- 
fidenial  Agent  of  Carranza  in  Washington. 

Almost  a  year  has  passed  since  the  date  of  the  recog- 
nition and  Mexico  continues  under  the  anarchical  dictator- 
ship of  Carranza. 

The  latter,  in  order  to  make  it  believed  that  the  coun- 
try is  on  the  way  of  returning  soon  to  legal  rule,  issued 
in  July,  1916,  a  decree  in  which  he  orders  that  the  muni- 
cipal power  shall  be  reconstituted  in  the  entire  Republic 
(up  to  this  time  it  has  been  abolished  by  Carranza) ;  but 
the  same  decree  disposes  that  every  question  regarding 
the  validity  of  the  elections  of  the  members  of  the  muni- 
cipal bodies  or  councils,  shall  be  decided  by  the  respective 
military  governor  named  by  Carranza ! 

He  has  also  issued  a  decree  for  the  re-establishment 
of  the  lower  courts  of  Federal  justice;  but  in  the  same 
decree  he  declares  that  the  individual  guaranties  shall  re- 
main suspended,  as  well  as  the  Constitution,  and,  there- 
fore, the  Federal  Courts  will  not  be  able  to  decide  any 
question  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution. 

Considering  that  Mr.  Wilson  graciously  consented,  by 
recognizing  Carranza,  to  subvert  all  his  principles  insisted 
upon  during  two  years,  it  might  be  thought  that,  for  other 
reasons,  Carranza  was  entitled  to  recognition.  For  ex- 
ample, it  might  be  supposed  that,  arbitrary  as  it  is,  the 
power  of  Carranza  was  respectable  for  its  morality  and 
efficiency.  Let  us  clear  up  this  question,  judging  the 


44 

recognition  in  the  light  of  the  official  documents  of  the 
American  Government  itself. 

The  following  passages  are  copied  from  the  note  which 
Secretary  Lansing  directed  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Relations  of  the  "Government  de  facto,"  on  June  20th, 
1916: 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  has 
viewed  with  deep  concern  and  increasing  disap- 
pointment the  progress  of  the  revolution  in  Mex- 
ico. Continuous  bloodshed  and  disorders  have 
marked  its  progress.  For  three  years  the  Mexican 
Republic  has  been  torn  with  civil  strife;  the  lives 
of  Americans  and  other  aliens  have  been  sacrificed ; 
vast  properties  developed  by  American  capital  and 
enterprise  have  been  destroyed  or  rendered  non- 
productive ;  bandits  have  been  permitted  to  roam  at 
will  through  the  territory  contiguous  to  the  United 
States  and  to  seize,  without  punishment  or  without 
effective  attempt  at  punishment,  the  property  of 
Americans,  while  the  lives  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States  who  ventured  to  remain  in  Mexican  terri- 
tory or  to  return  there  to  protect  their  interests 
have  been  taken,  and  in  some  cases  barbarously 
taken,  and  the  murderers  have  neither  been  appre- 
hended nor  brought  to  justice.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  find  in  the  annals  of  the  history  of  Mexico  con- 
ditions more  deplorable  than  those  which  have  ex- 
isted there  during  these  recent  years  of  civil  war." 

As  it  is  seen,  the  picture  of  the  situation  in  Mexico 
which  Mr.  Lansing  makes  comprehends  the  last  three 
years  and,  therefore,  Carranza  was  recognized  as  a  Gov- 
ernment when  the  most  horrible  anarchy  was  reigning  in 
Mexico  and  it  was  not  proper  to  say  that  there  was  any 
Government. 


45 

Secretary  Lansing  continues : 

"It  would  be  tedious  to  recount  instance  after 
instance,  outrage  after  outrage,  atrocity  after 
atrocity  to  illustrate  the  true  nature  and  extent  of 
the  widespread  conditions  of  lawlessness  and  vio- 
lence which  have  prevailed.  During  the  past  nine 
months  in  particular  *  * 

(As  is  to  be  supposed,  given  the  date  of  the  note,  this 
period  of  nine  months  had  already  begun  to  run  when 
recognition  was  granted,  which  was  on  the  19th  of  Octo- 
ber, 1915). 

"During  the  past  nine  months  in  particular  the 
frontier  of  the  United  States  along  the  lower  Eio 
Grande  has  been  thrown  into  a  state  of  constant 
apprehension  and  turmoil  because  of  frequent  and 
sudden  incursions  into  American  territory  and  dep- 
redations and  murders  on  American  soil  by  Mexi- 
can bandits,  who  have  taken  the  lives  and  destroyed 
the  property  of  American  citizens,  sometimes 
carrying  American  citizens  across  the  international 
boundary  with  the  booty  seized.  American  garri- 
sons have  been  attacked  at  night,  American  soldiers 
killed  and  their  equipment  and  horses  stolen; 
American  ranches  have  been  raided,  property 
stolen  and  destroyed  and  American  trains  wrecked 
and  plundered.  The  attacks  on  Brownsville,  Red 
House  Ferry,  Progreso  Post  Office  and  Las  Pe- 
ladas,  all  occurring  during  September  last  are 
typical." 

Observe  that  these  typical  attacks  occurred  in  Septem- 
ber, during  the  month  preceding  the  recognition. 

But  the  most  interesting  thing  is  what  Mr.  Lansing 
adds:  "In  these  attacks  on  American  territory,  Carran- 
cista  adherents,  and  even  Carrancista  soldiers  took  part 
in  the  looting,  burning  and  killing." 


46 

Mr.  Lansing  continues :  "Not  only  were  these  murders 
characterized  by  ruthless  brutality,  but  uncivilized  acts 
of  mutilation  were  perpetrated.  Representations  were 
made  to  General  Carranza  and  he  was  emphatically  re- 
quested to  stop  these  reprehensible  acts  in  a  section  which 
he  has  long  claimed  to  be  under  the  complete  domination 
of  his  authority.  Notwithstanding  these  representations 
and  the  promise  of  General  Nafarrate  to  prevent  attacks 
along  the  international  boundary,  in  the  following  month 
of  October  *  *  *" 

Note  well  that  this  was  in  the  month  of  October,  to- 
wit,  in  the  month  of  the  recognition. 

"*  *  *  in  the  following  month  of  October  a  passen- 
ger train  was  wrecked  by  bandits  and  several  persons 
killed  seven  miles  north  of  Brownsville,  and  an  attack 
was  made  upon  United  States  troops  at  the  same  place 
several  days  later.  Since  these  attacks,  leaders  of  the 
bandits  well  known  both  to  Mexican  civil  and  military 
authorities  f  as  well  as  to  American  officers,  have  been 
enjoying  with  impunity  the  liberty  of  the  towns  of  north- 
ern Mexico.  So  far  has  the  indifference  of  the  de  facto 
Government  to  these  atrocities  gone,  that  some  of  these 
leaders,  as  I  am  advised,  have  received  not  only  the  pro- 
tection of  that  Government,  BUT  ENCOURAGEMENT 
AND  AID  AS  WELL." 

It  thus  appears  that  Carranza  was  recognized  in  the 
precise  moment  in  which  his  own  soldiers  were  committing 
sackage,  incendiarism  and  homicides  on  American  terri- 
tory; when  the  authors  of  these  outrages  were  passing 
thereafter  to  Mexico  and  were  enjoying  impunity  and 
liberty,  notwithstanding  their  being  known  to  the  Carran- 
cista  authorities;  and  when  the  so-called  government  de 
facto  and  its  subordinates  not  only  manifested  indifference 
for  these  acts,  but  were  encouraging  and  aiding  the 
bandits. 

How  can  the  recognition  be  justified  under  these  con- 
ditions, if  all  the  circumstances  proved  that  Carranza 


47 

could  be  the  chief  of  a  band  of  malefactors,  but  never  the 
head  of  a  government? 

But  the  note  of  Secretary  Lansing  explains  his 
enigma : 

"When  the  superiority  of  the  revolutionary 
faction  led  by  General  Carranza  became  undoubted, 
the  United  States,  after  conferring  with  six  others 
of  the  American  Republics,  recognized  uncondition- 
ally the  present  de  facto  Government." 

The  first  thing  that  occurs  to  us  to  observe  is  that  the 
circumstance  that  one  revolutionary  faction-  may  be  su- 
perior to  others  that  exist  in  the  country,  is  not  a  rational 
motive  for  declaring  that  faction  to  be  the  government  of 
the  country.  A  faction  as,  with  justice,  Mr.  Lansing  calls 
"Carranzaism,"  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  government. 

Now  let  us  see  that  what,  in  reality,  took  place  was, 
that  Mr.  Wilson  proposed  to  experiment  with  Carranza; 
and  even  when  common  sense  counselled  him  to  postpone 
recognition  until  the  experiment,  as  made,  should  result 
favorably,  Mr.  Wilson  did  the  very  reverse.  "It  (the 
United  States)  hoped  that  that  Government  (Carranza's) 
would  speedily  restore  order  and  provide  the  Mexican 
people  and  others,  who  had  given  their  energy  and  sub- 
stance to  the  development  of  the  great  resources  of  that 
Republic,  opportunity  to  rebuild  in  peace  and  security 
their  shattered  fortunes." 

Naturally,  the  experiment  resulted  in  a  gigantic  fiasco, 
which  makes  Secretary  Lansing  say,  with  melancholy 
disillusion:  "This  Government  has  waited  month  after 
month  for  the  consummation  of  its  hope  and  expectation." 

It  appears  incredible  that  Carranza  should  have  been 
recognized  as  the  Government  only  in  the  "hope"  and 
under  the  "expectation"  that  he  might  be  able  to  come  to 
be  a  government. 


48 

We  would  recall  here  the  phrase  of  Horace — "risura 
teneatis" — if  it  were  not  for  the  tragic  results  which  the 
blind  measures  of  the  American  Government  have  pro- 
duced for  a  country,  before  prosperous  and  respectable, 
and  now  the  object  of  universal  commiseration. 

To  flatter  his  chief,  the  distinguished  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  Mr.  Lane,  declared :  "President  Wilson's  Mexi- 
can policy  is  one  of  the  things  of  which  I  am  most  proud ;" 
but  he  will  be  able  to  make  only  fools,  or  those  who  are 
unacquainted  with  the  President's  course,  believe  that 
that  policy  has  been  "definite  and  consistent,  firm  and  con- 
structive." 


49 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  FIEST  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  EECOGNITION — SANTA 
ISABEL  AND  COLUMBUS. 

Whoever  may  have  read  the  chapter  immediately  pre- 
ceding will  have  been  convinced  that  upon  declaring  that 
Carranzaism  was  Government,  President  Wilson  forgot 
that  famous  aphorism  of  his, — "If  we  are  to  accept  the 
tests  of  its  own  constitution,  Mexico  has  no  Government." 
Let  us  apply,  in  effect,  the  "tests"  of  the  constitution  of 
Mexico  to  that  "First  Chief,"  who  has  invested  himself 
with  all  the  powers,  including  that  of  amending  the  con- 
stitution, and  we  will  have  to  conclude  with  Mr.  Wilson 
that  "Mexico  has  no  Government."  The  constitution  of 
Mexico,  it  will  be  understood,  is  a  copy  of  that  of  the 
United  States. 

Carranza  is  trying  to  govern  Mexico,  not  as  provisional 
President,  or  with  any  other  character  that  may  have 
some  appearance  of  constitutional  function,  but  simply 
as  "First  Chief,"  like  a  "Sheik"  who  rules  despotically 
over  a  tribe  of  Bedouins. 

If  that  Sheik  had  at  any  time  exercised  control  of  the 
country,  preserving  order  "in  fact, "  which  is  the  basis  of 
all  organization,  President  Wilson  would  have  had  some 
excuse  for  declaring  him  a  government  "de  facto;"  but 
we  have  already  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  when 
Carranza  was  recognized  he  was  only  the  chief  of  a  faction 
and  that  he  was  declared  a  government  de  facto,  not  be- 
cause he  was  such,  but  because  Mr.  Wilson  had  the  hope 
that  he  might  become  such. 

The  act  of  recognizing  Carranza  was  not  indeed  in- 
spired, like  the  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz,  by  the  purpose 
of  "serving  humanity,"  but  by  another  purpose  more  pro- 
saic and  business-like.  It  was  necessary,  in  effect,  to  pre- 
sent to  the  new  American  Congress,  which  was  to  be 


50 

convened  in  December  (1915)  and  whose  political  composi- 
tion revealed  a  change  in  the  public  sentiment,  something 
which  would  signify  a  radical  modification  of  the  ridiculed 
policy  of  "watchful  waiting."  It  was  important  also  to 
make  the  public  believe  that  the  efforts  of  the  President 
had  produced  the  admirable  result  that  Mexico  finally  had 
a  Government.  To  completely  confuse  public  opinion, 
came,  as  from  a  mould,  the  complacent  and  solicited  co- 
operation of  six  Latin- American  countries. 

The  President  nevertheless,  had  the  frankness  to  con- 
fess that  he  was  making  a  new  experiment.  "Whether 
we  have  benefited  Mexico,  by  the  course  we  have  pursued, 
remains  to  be  seen,"  he  said,  in  his  message  to  Congress 
on  the  7th  of  December,  1915. 

The  new  experiment  resulted  in  a  new  fiasco,  as  the  note 
of  Secretary  Lansing,  analyzed  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
proves. 

The  problem  which  President  Wilson  tried  to  resolve, 
with  the  recognition  of  Carranza,  was  complicated  by  a 
factor  which  it  was  indispensable  to  eliminate.  We  refer 
to  Francisco  Villa.  The  President  did  not  hesitate  to  de- 
clare war  on  him,  and  Villa  took  up  the  glove. 

It  is  worth  while  to  relate  the  history  of  the  relations 
of  the  Government  of  the  United  States  with  the  famous 
Mexican  bandit ;  but  we  shall  make  only  a  brief  recapitula- 
tion of  that  history,  indispensable  for  comprehending  the 
present  state  of  the  international  situation  of  Mexico. 

The  revolution  which  Carranza  headed  acquired  mili- 
tary importance,  thanks  to  the  soldierly  qualities  of  Fran- 
cisco Villa.  The  triumphs  of  the  latter  attracted  to  his 
person  universal  attention.  The  bandit  was  transformed 
into  a  general,  and  began  to  be  officially  designated  with 
tills  title  by  the  American  Government. 

The  personality  of  Villa  was  acquiring  international 
character.  Astute  and  ambitious,  he  comprehended  that 
it  was  important  for  him  to  gain  the  good-will  of  the 
United  States  and  to  exploit  in  his  behalf  the  unfavorable 


51 

impression  which  Carranza  was  causing  in  Washington 
by  his  obstinacy  and  want  of  malleability.  Villa,  on  his 
part,  showed  himself  always  complacent  and  lost  no  op- 
portunity of  flattering  President  Wilson  and  Secretary 
Bryan. 

From  all  this  resulted  a  preference,  constantly  more 
accentuated,  on  the  part  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  toward  Francisco  Villa,  to  whom  was  shown  the 
honor  of  attaching  to  him  an  American  Confidential  Agent, 
who  accompanied  him  everywhere.  And  this  was  not  due, 
surely,  to  a  transformation  in  the  criminal  spirit  of  Villa ; 
but  Carranza  showed  himself  so  incapable  and  imper- 
tinent, that  the  Government  at  Washington  began  to  be- 
lieve that  in  the  bandit-general  Mexico  must  place  its 
hopes  of  redemption.  "The  one-time  bandit  has  become 
a  military  genius;  why  not  a  peacemaker  and  a  states- 
man1?" said  the  daily,  most  friendly  to  the  Administration, 
illustrating  its  editorial  with  a  cartoon,  in  which  Mr. 
Wilson  extends  his  hand  to  the  bandit.  (The  New  York 
World,  June  22,  1914.) 

Secretary  Bryan,  on  his  part,  was  coquetting  with  the 
assassin  of  the  Englishman,  Benton,  and  of  the  American, 
Bauch.  On  the  2nd  of  September  (1914),  upon  Villa's 
return  from  Sonora  where  he  had  gone  on  a  pacifying 
mission,  Mr.  Bryan  telegraphed  him,  sending  him  "the 
sincere  thanks"  of  the  American  Government,  and  adding 
these  words:  "Your  patient  labors  in  this  matter  are 
greatly  appreciated  by  the  State  Department  and  the 
President.* ' 

To  such  extremes  did  this  singular  attitude  arrive, 
that  the  well-informed-1— if  not  inspired — correspondent  of 
the  New  York  World  in  Washington,  said  on  the  23rd 
of  November  (1914),  "President  Wilson  has  great  faith 
in  Villa's  ability  to  handle  the  situation." 

But  if  these  and  other  data  which  we  could  present 
were  not  sufficient  indication  of  the  sympathy  of  the 
American  Government  for  Villa,  we  refer  to  the  speech  de- 


52 

livered  on  the  4th  of  August,  1916,  by  Senator  James 
Hamilton  Lewis,  "Democratic  whip  of  the  Senate,"  in 
which,  by  way  of  defense  of  the  policy  of  President  Wil- 
son, he  asserted  that  the  latter  was  on  the  point  of  recog- 
nizing Villa  "as  a  test  and  trial;"  a  statement  which 
throws  to  the  ground  the  principal  argument  of  those  who 
defend  the  conduct  of  the  President  towards  Huerta  as 
highly  moral,  since  if  the  latter  was  considered  an  assas- 
sin, Villa  was  notoriously  such  and  on  a  greater  scale. 

With  the  antecedents  which  we  have  just  pointed  out  it 
is  not  surprising  that  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  should  carry  its  attentions  toward  the  bandit  to 
the  extreme  of  sending  to  him,  as  special  ambassador,  no 
less  a  person  than  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  American 
Army.  This  happened  in  August,  1915. 

Villa  had  dictated  a  series  of  confiscatory  decrees  and 
was  trying  to  obtain  from  the  mining  companies  that 
operated  in  his  territory  a  large  advance  in  cash.  The 
Washington  Government  resolved,  contrary  to  its  custom, 
to  protect  the  American  companies  affected  by  these  ini- 
quitous decrees  of  Villa ;  but  instead  of  boldly  taking  an 
attitude  against  him,  which  would  have  been  in  consonance 
with  the  dignity  of  the  United  States,  it  resolved  to  treat 
him  as  an  equal  and  it  imposed  upon  General  Scott  the 
humiliating  mission  of  going  to  appease  the  brigand. 
Villa  considered  the  American  general  as  his  "colleague" 
and  received  him  with  honors  when  Scott  passed  over  to 
Juarez  to  present  his  respects  to  Villa.  The  honors  were 
reciprocated  on  the  following  day  by  the  forces  of  the 
United  States,  when  the  Mexican  "general"  went  to  El 
Paso  to  pay  a  visit  to  General  Scott.  The  object  of  the 
trip  of  the  latter  was,  indeed,  fruitful,  since  Villa  revoked 
some  of  his  arbitrary  decrees ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  bandit 
was  inflated  with  pride  at  feeling  himself  considered  as  of 
the  necessary  importance  to  have  sent  to  him,  as  a  pro- 
curator, the  first  figure  in  the  American  Army. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  relations  between  the 


53 

Washington  Government  and  Francisco  Villa  when  the 
Department  of  State,  assisted  by  the  representatives  of 
six  Latin- American  countries  directed  to  Carranza,  to 
Villa  and  to  the  other  chiefs  of  faction,  joint  notes,  in- 
viting them  to  compose  their  differences  and  to  form  a 
government  by  common  accord.  (Chapter  V.) 

Villa  accepted,  with  good  will,  the  invitation  and 
named  his  delegates,  who  immediately  proceeded  to  Wash- 
ington. It  was  beyond  all  doubt  that  Villa  still  dominated 
an  important  portion  of  the  northern  part  of  the  Mexican 
Republic,  and  could  not  rationally  be  considered  as  an 
insignificant  factor  in  the  political  entanglement  of 
Mexico. 

A  few  weeks  later,  to  the  great  surprise  of  Villa  and 
of  everybody,  Carranza  was  recognized.  Not  even  was  the 
courtesy  shown  of  first  withdrawing  the  joint  invitation 
to  which  Villa  had  given  such  prompt  acceptance.  The 
wild  beast  felt  the  humiliation  in  all  its  cruel  intensity. 
How,  after  having  been  the  depositary  of  the  hopes  of  the 
American  Government,  after  having  always  had  at  his 
side  a  confidential  representative  of  President  Wilson, 
after  being  called  a  military  genius  by  the  press  of  the 
United  States,  after,  in  fine,  having  had  sent  to  him  Gen- 
eral Scott  as  ambassador,  and  after  the  soldiers  of  the 
United  States  had  presented  arms  to  him,  was  he  now 
repudiated,  in  discourteous  form,  unceremoniously,  and 
his  rival  Carranza  recognized  as  the  ruler  of  Mexico? 

In  fact,  however  odious  may  be  the  personality  of 
Villa,  the  conduct  of  the  American  Government  was,  at 
least,  illogical. 

It  was,  also,  imprudent.  Villa  represented  a  force, 
an  infernal  force,  which  would  surely  be  turned  against 
his  former  protector. 

President  Wilson  must  have  comprehended  this  and 
he  determined  to  aid  Carranza  in  order  that  the  latter 
might  crush  Villa  with  rapidity. 

The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  establish  an  embargo 


54 

upon  arms  and  munitions  in  respect  to  the  ports  of  the 
frontier  which  Villa  still  held  in  his  possession. 

The  second  thing  was  to  permit  Carranza  to  convert 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  into  a  strategic  base 
for  his  operations  against  Villa.  Thus  upon  his  arrival  at 
the  frontier  town  of  Agua-Prieta,  with  the  purpose  of 
taking  it,  Villa  found  the  Carranza  garrison  formidably 
reinforced  with  fresh  troops.  These  troops  had  been  sent 
rapidly  through  territory  of  the  United  States  and  upon 
American  railroads,  at  the  same  time  that  the  forces  of 
Villa  were  moving  slowly  and  laboriously  along  the  rough 
highways  of  Chihuahua  and  Souora. 

Villa  felt  himself  lost.  In  face  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Washington  Government,  the  Villa  troops  began  to  desert. 
His  generals  went  over  to  Carranza  or  sought  refuge  in 
the  United  States.  The  indignation  of  the  bandit  knew 
no  limits  and  he  swore  vengeance.  To  his  criminal  spirit 
there  were  no  distinctions.  He  thought  to  avenge  him- 
self upon  President  Wilson  as  well  by  sacrificing  the  lives 
of  innocent,  peaceful  Americans,  as  by  assaulting  a  camp 
of  American  troops.  The  eighteen  victims  who  were 
butchered  at  Santa  Isabel,  those  who  fell  in  the  Columbus 
raid,  are  victims  immolated  upon  the  altars  of  the  im- 
prudent friendship  of  Mr.  Wilson  for  Carranza. 

The  President  cannot  consider  himself  fortunate  in 
his  Mexican  adventure.  Each  step  of  his  has  brought 
with  it  some  disaster,  when  not  bloody  hecatombs. 


55 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FROM  COLUMBUS  TO  CAERIZAL. 

How  to  satisfy  public  opinion,  justly  outraged  by  the 
Columbus  "raid?"* 

If  a  party  of  Canadian  bandits  had  assaulted  and 
sacked  a  settlement  in  North  Dakota,  President  Wilson 
would  not  have  sent  against  the  malefactors  a  punitive 
expedition.  If  an  American  bandit  had  sacked  a  settle- 
ment in  Manitoba,  the  Canadian  government  would  not 
have  sent  in  his  pursuit  a  punitive  expedition. 

It  is  clearly  seen,  in  either  one  of  these  two  cases,  that 
it  would  have  been  an  attack  against  the  sovereignty  of 
the  respective  countries  to  send  from  the  neighboring  coun- 
try a  punitive  expedition.  The  people  of  the  United  States 
would  never  consent  to  this  attack.  Much  less  would  they 
tolerate  the  entrance  into  the  United  States  in  pursuit  of 
a  malefactor,  of  a  column  of  eight  or  ten  thousand  sol- 
diers of  the  Canadian  Army  and  that,  after  having  lost 
the  trail  of  the  fugitive,  the  column,  instead  of  returning 
to  Canada,  for  failure  of  the  object  of  the  expedition, 
should  station  itself  indefinitely  upon  American  soil  and 
establish  a  formal  camp  from  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  south  of  the  dividing  line. 

But,  Oh,  human  injustice!  that  which  would  not  be 
tolerated  from  the  neighbor  on  the  north,  is  practiced  on 
the  neighbor  of  the  south.  What  would  be  considered  an 
offense,  if  it  were  a  question  of  suffering  it,  is  held  as  a 
permissible  act  when  it  is  a  case  of  doing  it. 

The  act  is  more  censurable  and  less  honorable  to  the 


*NOTB.  As  is  well  known,  a  party  of  the  followers  of  Villa  fell  upon 
Columbus,  New  Mexico,  on  the  morning  of  the  9th  of  March,  3  OK!, 
surprising  a  strong  detachment  of  United  States  troops  which  were 
encamped  there.  The  Villaistas  were  obliged  to  retire,  but  after  having 
sacked  and  burned  the  principal  part  of  the  town  and  having  killed  and 
wounded  a  large  number  of  persons. 


56 

one  who  executes  it,  when  the  victim  is  weak  and  lacks 
the  forces  to  compel  respect  for  the  inviolability  of  its 
territory. 

According  to  the  position  taken  by  the  United  States, 
Mexico  has  a  government,  recognized  unconditionally.  It 
is  the  fault  of  the  "Washington  government  that  it  de- 
clared to  be  a  government  of  Mexico,  what  was  simply  an 
instrument  of  tyranny,  disorganized  and,  at  the  same  time, 
impotent ;  but  the  honor  and  self-respect  of  the  American 
government — apart  from  what  the  theories  of  interna- 
tional law  may  provide — clearly  indicated  its  duty  after 
the  attack  on  Columbus.  That  duty  was  alternative: 
either  to  exact  from  Carranza  the  pursuit  of  the  male- 
factors, who  had  fled  to  Mexican  soil,  and  their  arrest  and 
delivery  to  the  authorities  of  the  United  States;  or,  in- 
deed, if  Carranza  was  considered  impotent  to  fulfill  these 
fundamental  obligations,  to  break  all  relations  with  the 
"de  facto  government"  and  to  dispatch  the  punitive  ex- 
pedition, leaving  upon  Carranza  the  responsibility  of  de- 
claring war  if  he  did  not  accept  the  sending  of  the  ex- 
pedition. 

But  what  could  not  be  done  without  committing  an  at- 
tack against  the  principles  of  international  law,  was  to 
resolve  upon  the  dispatch  of  the  punitive  expedition  with- 
out either  obtaining  the  consent  of  the  "de  facto  govern- 
ment" or  breaking  off  relations  with  it. 

On  the  following  day  after  the  "raid"  this  resolution 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  published :  "An 
adequate  force  will  be  sent  at  once  in  pursuit  of  Villa  with 
the  single  object  of  capturing  him  and  putting  a  stop  to 
his  forays."  The  resolution  added — what  was  a  cruel 
sarcasm — that  the  punitive  expedition  would  be  conducted 
with  scrupulous  respect  to  the  sovereignty  of  Mexico. 

It  has  been  said — even  by  President  "Wilson  himself — 
that  the  punitive  expedition  was  sent  in  virtue  of  an 
agreement  with  the  "government  de  facto."  This  is  an 


57 

error,  notorious  to  everyone  who  may  have  studied  this 
unfortunate  incident.  In  any  case,  and  even  had  there 
been  a  subsequent  agreement,  the  fact  is  that  when  the 
President  made  known  to  the  public  that  he  would  dis- 
patch the  punitive  expedition,  Carranza  had  not  only  not 
been  consulted,  but  not  even  notified. 

But  if  the  expedition  was  an  attack  from  the  point  of 
view  of  international  law,  it  was  useless  from  a  practical 
standpoint.  General  Pershing  was  to  "capture"  Villa, 
and  the  latter,  six  months  later,  is  laughing  at  his  pur- 
suers and  harassing  the  Carranzistas  with  impunity. 

It  is  surprising  that  it  should  not  occur  to  a  man  as 
intelligent  as  President  Wilson  to  think  that  with  the 
advantage  of  six  or  eight  days,  which  was  given  to  Villa — 
the  time  which,  as  will  be  remembered,  it  took  General 
Pershing  to  prepare  himself — it  would  be  impossible  to 
overtake  a  bandit,  audacious,  astute,  acquainted  as  no  one 
else  with  the  complicated  topography  of  the  region,  ac- 
customed to  live  perpetually  as  a  fugitive,  and  who  could 
count,  moreover,  on  the  sympathy  of  the  native  pop- 
ulation. 

And  then,  what  limits  would  the  expedition  have? 
Would  it  go,  if  it  should  be  necessary,  to  the  frontier  of 
Guatemala? 

Very  soon  the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking  began  to 
appear. 

Carranza,  who  had  never  consented  to  the  expedition, 
nevertheless  did  not  have  the  force  to  repel  it,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  he  limited  himself  to  placing  very  kind 
of  difficulty  in  its  way,  and  to  these,  on  its  part,  the  Ameri- 
can government  submitted  with  meekness.  The  expedition 
was  marching  between  two  lines  of  railroad,  but  was  not 
permitted  to  use  either  of  them.  Carranza  prohibited  it 
from  entering  towns,  and  it  did  not  enter.  But,  in  spite 
of  all,  it  continued  to  advance  until  it  had  to  halt  and 


58 

double  back  when  its  advances  were  opposed  by  the  Car- 
rancista  force  in  Parral. 

At  this  point  the  government  of  Washington  should 
have  opened  its  eyes  and,  recognizing  with  valor  and 
honor  the  position,  at  once  ridiculous  and  perilous,  in 
which  it  had  been  placed,  it  should  have  ordered  the  return 
of  General  Pershing  to  the  United  States. 

Because  if  the  expedition  were  useless,  as,  in  effect,  it 
was,  why  insist  upon  if? 

On  the  contrary,  if  the  expedition  were  useful  and  le- 
gitimate, why  not  then  carry  it  forward,  cost  what  it 
might,  as  becomes  a  government  which  esteems  its  own 
dignity? 

But  Mr.  Wilson  chose  a  middle  course.  He  neither 
withdrew  the  column  nor  did  he  permit  it  to  go  forward 
for  the  purpose  of  "capturing  Villa,"  for  which  it  had 
been  dispatched. 

Later  we  shall  try  to  present  the  only  possible  expla- 
nation of  this  contradictory  and  ungraceful  position:  the 
personal  political  interests  of  Mr.  Wilson. 

In  honor  of  the  truth,  Carranza  did  what  he  could, 
considering  his  situation  of  extreme  weakness,  to  obtain 
the  withdrawal  of  the  useless  punitive  expedition,  whose 
continuation  in  Mexico  is  a  constant  offence  to  the  pa- 
triotic sentiment  of  the  Mexicans.  Forced  by  this  senti- 
ment, Carranza  notified  the  Washington  government  of 
his  intention  to  forcibly  resist  any  attempt  whatever  of 
the  column  of  General  Pershing  to  advance. 

The  Department  of  State,  in  a  very  solemn  tone,  made 
known  to  Carranza  that  any  act  of  force  whatever  on  his 
part  would  bring  the  "gravest  consequences";  but  Car- 
ranza, who  knew,  as  all  the  world  does,  the  innocuousness 
of  this  high  sounding  diplomatic  literature  of  the  De- 
partment of  State,  gave  orders  to  his  military  chiefs  to 
resist  any  advance  of  the  American  forces. 


59 

The  result  of  all  this  was  the  combat  of  Carrizal,  in 
which  a  small  American  column  was  destroyed  with  sens- 
ible loss  of  life  for  both  parties.  The  "gravest  conse- 
quences" which  this  practical  demonstration  of  Carranza's 
earnestness  produced  were  a  declaration  of  the  Secretary 
of  State,  in  a  note  dated  two  weeks  after  the  occurrence 
of  Carrizal  (July  7th),  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  spirit 
of  friendship  and  solicitude  which  animates  the  American 
government  for  the  continuation  of  cordial  relations  be- 
tween both  governments!! 


60 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  CRUEL  SIDE  OF  THE  POLICY  OF  MR.  WILSON. 

On  the  14th  of  March,  1912,  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  enacted  a  law  in  the  following  terms :  . 

"That  whenever  the  President  shall  find  that  in  any 
American  country  conditions  of  domestic  violence  exist 
which  are  promoted  by  the  use  of  arms  or  munitions  of 
war  procured  from  the  United  States,  and  shall  make  pro- 
clamation thereof,  it  shall  be  unlawful  to  export  except 
under  such  limitations  and  exceptions  as  the  President 
shall  prescribe,  any  arms  or  munitions  of  war  from  any 
place  in  the  United  States  to  such  country  *." 

This  law,  as  is  seen,  is  not  imperative,  since  it  leaves 
to  the  President's  discretion  to  establish  an  embargo  when 
he  may  judge  that  a  state  of  "domestic  violence"  is  fo- 
mented by  the  use  of  war  materials  of  American  origin. 
But,  in  spite  of  this,  the  spirit  of  the  law  is  clear. 

The  Congress  wished,  in  effect,  to  afford  to  the  Presi- 
dent— who  is  the  one  person  better  than  anybody  else  that 
can  have  knowledge  of  the  circumstances  of  the  case — 
a  prompt  means  of  preventing  revolts  in  the  neighboring 
countries,  so  far  as  these  revolts  may  be  sustained  with 
arms  and  ammunition  which  the  insurgents  might  acquire 
in  the  United  States.  This  law  establishes  a  justified  form 
of  intervention  by  abstention;  it  is  inspired  by  humani- 
tarian principles  and  tends  to  prevent  American  manu- 
facturers of  arms  and  ammunition  from  enriching  them- 
selves at  the  expense  of  the  bloodshed  and  ruin  produced 
by  the  frequent  revolutions  which  are  the  curse  of  the 
Latin-American  countries. 

For  a  man  as  humanitarian  as  President  Wilson,  this 
law  should  have  been  a  precious  instrument  with  which 
to  realize  peace  in  Mexico.  President  Taft  decreed  the 
embargo  of  war  materials  when  Pascual  Orozco  rebelled 


61 

in  the  State  of  Chihuahua  against  President  Madero ;  but 
President  Wilson — as  we  have  seen — in  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1914,  raised  the  embargo  which  was  impeding 
the  development  of  the  "Constitutionalist"  revolution.  In 
his  eagerness  to  destroy  Huerta,  he  did  not  consider  that 
the  one  immediately  favored  by  the  cancellation  of  the 
embargo,  was  Francisco  Villa,  then  the  most  important 
figure  in  the  revolution.  Neither  did  President  Wilson 
reflect  that  Villa  and  the  other  Carranzista  generals  were 
paying  for  their  arms  and  ammunition  with  the  products 
of  robbery  and  confiscation,  practiced  on  a  gigantic  scale 
upon  Mexicans  and  foreigners. 

Neither  the  immoral  despoliation  of  the  property  of 
others,  nor  the  immoral  enrichment  of  the  speculators  in 
war  materials,  nor  the  cruel  and  inhuman  form  which  the 
struggle  had  taken,  moved  President  Wilson.  "The  end 
justifies  the  means,"  he  must  have  said.  The  end  was  to 
overthrow  Huerta. 

That  end  was  realized,  as  we  have  explained  in  an- 
other chapter.  The  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
"Constitutionalists,"  and  it  was  to  be  expected  that  the 
activities  of  the  President — if  he  still  persisted  in  med- 
dling in  the  internal  affairs  of  Mexico — would  have  to 
be  directed  to  favoring  the  re-establishment  of  order  in 
the  destroyed  country. 

Nevertheless,  the  division  in  the  revolutionary  files 
having  supervened,  Mr.  Wilson,  notwithstanding  the  un- 
favorable reports  which  he  had  of  Carranza  and  notwith- 
standing his  open  sympathy  for  Villa,  delivered  to  Carran- 
za the  port  of  Vera  Cruz,  which  resulted  in  kindling  the 
civil  war  anew,  which  the  President  could  have  avoided  by 
simply  holding  for  a  little  longer  time  the  port  of  Vera 
Cruz.  With  incredible  hardness  of  heart,  Mr.  Wilson 
sacrificed  everything  to  his  personal  political  interests. 
(See  Chapter  V.) 

The  struggle  between  the  Carranzistas  and  the  Con- 
ventionists  (of  which  latter  group  Villa  was  the  head) 


62 

assumed  a  character  of  terrible  cruelty.  Those  combat- 
ants did  not  appear  to  fight  against  their  enemies,  but 
against  the  immense  pacific  population.  Everyone,  who 
may  have  followed  the  changes  of  this  drama,  knows  the 
infinite  number  of  attacks  upon  the  honor  of  women,  upon 
religion,  upon  property  and  upon  life.  A  savage  struggle 
in  which  the  Yaquis,  barbarous  and  sanguinary,  who 
formed  a  part  of  the  hosts  of  Carranza,  the  criminals, 
taken  from  all  the  prisons,  the  Mexican  Indian,  ignorant 
and  avid  for  blood  and  rapine,  who  formed  the  bulk  of 
the  combatants,  satisfied  their  instincts  of  bestial  ferocity 
at  the  expense  of  fifteen  millions  of  human  beings. 

Hunger  and  pestilence  increased  the  ravages  of  war. 
The  military  chiefs  made  scandalous  fortunes,  and  what 
they  did  not  appropriate  to  themselves  was  sent  to  the 
United  States  to  the  voracious  speculators,  who  were  paid 
with  the  bread  and  tears  of  the  Mexican,  people  for  the 
arms  and  ammunition  which  sustained  that  infernal 
conflict. 

Read  the  reports  of  the  Red  Cross;  examine  the  of- 
ficial data  with  which  the  Department  of  State  is  stuffed, 
and  it  will  be  seen  that  while  thousands  of  women  and 
children  were  dying  for  lack  of  food,  cargoes  of  corn, 
beans,  of  live  stock,  and  all  that  could  satisfy  hunger, 
went  out  of  the  Mexican  ports  and  of  the  frontier  cities 
to  be  converted  into  rifles  and  cartridges,  into  instru- 
ments of  destruction. 

Had  there  ever  been  a  more  patent  case  of  "Domestic 
violence,"  sustained  by  American  arms  and  ammunition? 
There  could  not  be,  and  there  was  not,  any  other  source 
from  which  they  proceeded,  since  the  European  war  had 
closed  the  other  markets.  One  word  of  President  Wilson 
would  have  sufficed  to  put  an  end  to  that  catastrophe, 
snatching  the  deadly  instrument  from  the  hands  which 
wielded  it.  No  longer  was  it  the  case  of  overthrowing  the 
"usurper,"  but  that  of  truly  serving  humanity  and  the 
Mexican  people  whom  the  President  had  declared,  by 


.      63 

conduct  of  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post,"  the  favorite 
object  of  his  "passion." 

Not  only  did  he  do  nothing  which  was  legally  in  his 
hand  to  do  to  remedy,  or  even  to  alleviate  this  situation, 
but,  indeed,  with  an  unconsciousness — we  will  call  it  so — 
that  stuns,  the  President  said  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  8th 
of  January,  1915:  "Do  you  suppose  that  the  American 
people  are  ever  going  to  count  a  small  amount  of  ma- 
terial benefit  and  advantage  to  people  doing  business  in 
Mexico,  against  the  liberties  and  the  permanent  happiness 
of  the  Mexican  people!"  But  did  the  President  forget 
those  who  were  doing  "business"  in  Mexico  in  selling 
arms  and  ammunition  to  the  factions'?  Mr.  Wilson  al- 
luded to  the  American  miners,  to  the  American  agricul- 
turists, to  Americans  engaged  in  other  industries  in  Mex- 
ico who  had  seen  their  legitimate  business  ruined  by  the 
civil  war.  Let  these  suffer !  but  let  the  sellers  of  rifles  and 
mitrailleuses  and  cartridges  prosper! 

After  all,  that  odious  contest  was  a  thing  deemed 
worthy  of  respect  by  one  who  "serves  humanity."  "Shall 
we  deny  the  Mexicans  the  right  to  spill  as  much  blood 
as  they  please  ?"  added  the  President. 

Nevertheless,  Mr.  Wilson,  always  inconsistent,  changed 
his  position  some  months  afterward  and  suddenly  denied 
the  Mexicans  the  right  to  continue  "spilling"  their  blood. 
Perhap^s  the  President  was  convinced  of  what  he  had  not 
wished  to  see — that  that  contest  was  not  "for  the  liberty 
and  permanent  happiness  of  the  Mexican  people,"  but  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  ambitions  of  two  men,  Carranza 
and  Villa,  in  the  face  of  the  impotence  of  an  unarmed  and 
hungry  people. 

On  the  2nd  of  June,  1915,  the  President  launched  a 
severe  admonition  to  the  factions,  menacing  them  with 
intervention. 

"For  more  than  two  years, "  said  Mr.  Wilson,  "revolu- 
tionary conditions  have  existed  in  Mexico.  The  purpose 
of  the  revolution  was  to  rid  Mexico  of  men  who  ignored 


64 

the  constitution  of  the  republic  and  used  their  power  in 
contempt  of  the  rights  of  its  people,  and  with  these  pur- 
poses the  people  of  the  United  States  instinctively  and 
generously  sympathized.  But  the  leaders  of  the  revolu- 
tion, in  the  very  hour  of  their  success,  have  disagreed  and 
turned  their  arms  against  one  another. 

"All  professing  the  same  objects,  they  are,  neverthe- 
less, unable  or  unwilling  to  co-operate.  A  central  author- 
ity at  Mexico  City  is  no  sooner  set  up  than  it  is  under- 
mined and  its  authority  denied  by  those  who  were  expected 
to  support  it. 

"Mexico  is  apparently  no  nearer  a  solution  of  her 
tragical  troubles  than  she  was  when  the  revolution  was 
first  kindled.  And  she  has  been  swept  by  civil  war  as  if 
by  fire.  Her  crops  are  destroyed,  her  fields  lie  unseeded, 
her  work  cattle  are  confiscated  for  the  use  of  the  armed 
factions,  her  people  flee  to  the  mountains  to  escape  being 
drawn  into  unavailing  bloodshed,  and  no  man  seems  to  see 
or  lead  the  way  to  peace  and  settled  order.  There  is  no 
proper  protection  either  for  her  own  citizens  or  for  the 
citizens  of  other  nations  resident  and  at  work  within  her 
territory.  Mexico  is  starving  and  without  a  government." 

And,  indeed,  after  recognizing  the  awful  condition  of 
Mexico  in  terms  as  pathetic  as  exact,  the  President  con- 
tinued to  abstain  from  taking  the  first  and  most  obvious 
measure  that  the  circumstances  imposed :  the  embargo  of 
arms  and  ammunition.  The  President  announced  that, 
if  the  factions  did  not  make  peace,  "this  government  will 
be  constrained  to  decide  what  means  should  be  employed 
by  the  United  States."  That  is  to  say,  the  President  threat- 
ened intervention  in  Mexico,  an  illegal  act  which  did  not 
come  within  his  constitutional  faculties ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  indulged  himself  in  failing  to  do  what,  indeed,  was 
legal  and  legitimate, — to  deprive  or  entirely  cut  off  from 
the  factions  the  means  of  carrying  on  the  diabolical  work 
of  destruction! 

Not  even  the  most  enthusiastic  defenders  of  the  ab- 


65 

surdities  of  President  Wilson's  policy  in  Mexico,  such  as 
Secretary  Lane,  have  had  a  word  of  justification  for  that 
cruel  and  inhuman  attitude  of  the  President,  for  his  in- 
difference to  the  sufferings  of  the  Mexican  people,  for  his 
undissimulated  delight  in  having  the  Mexicans  continue 
"spilling  their  blood"  with  the  arms  which  the  President, 
himself,  virtually  furnished  to  them. 

Even  the  most  pathetic  situations  customarily  have 
their  comic  side.  We  have  just  seen  how  the  President, 
in  his  Indianapolis  speech  and  in  his  admonition  of  the 
2nd  of  June,  recognized  the  existence  in  Mexico  of  a  ter- 
rible condition  of  "domestic  violence." 

But  the  President  had  never  taken  into  account  the  fact 
that  this  condition  was  fomented  by  arms  and  ammunition 
obtained  in  the  United  States !  A  providential  revelation, 
a  voice  from  Heaven  made  known  to  the  President  this 
circumstance  on  the  same  day  in  which  he  recognized  the 
Carranza  faction  as  the  government  de  facto!  That  very 
day — October  19th,  1915 — the  President  issued  a  procla- 
mation establishing  an  embargo.  Then,  and  only  then, 
was  enforced  the  law,  or  joint  resolution,  of  the  Congress, 
cited  in  the  first  paragraph  of  this  chapter.  It  was  then 
that  Mr.  Wilson  discovered  that  there  had  been  a  condition 
of  violence  in  Mexico,  fomented  by  American  arms  and 
munitions.  Then,  at  last,  he  decided  to  restrain  the  "spill- 
ing of  blood."  For  this  purpose  a  proclamation  was  issued 
which  says :  "I,  Woodrow  Wilson,  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  do  hereby  declare  and  proclaim,  THAT 
I  HAVE  FOUND  (Sic!)  that  there  exists  in  Mexico  such 
conditions  of  domestic  violence  promoted  by  the  use  of 
arms  and  munitions  procured  from  the  United  States  as 
contemplated  by  the  said  Joint  Resolution  *". 

Therefore,  the  President  prohibits,  under  the  penalties  of 
the  law,  the  exportation  of  arms  and  ammunition  to 
Mexico. 

Of  course,  this  prohibition  was  not  applicable  to  Car- 
ranza. At  the  same  time  that  he  issued  the  proclamation, 


66 

the  President  ordered  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
permit  the  "government  de  facto"  to  import  as  many  arms 
and  cartridges  as  it  might  wish. 

This  it  was  that  permitted  Carranza,  first  at  Parral 
and  afterwards  at  Carrizal,  to  kill  several  officers  and  sol- 
diers of  the  army  of  the  United  States  with  American 
arms  and  ammunition. 


67 


CHAPTER  X. 

PECUNIARY  RESPONSIBILITIES  OP  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE. 

"Non-intervention  in  the  internal  affairs  of  a  sister  State 
is  the  fundamental  basis  of  national  independence,  and 
as  such  is  the  first  principle  of  the  system  of  international 
low  now  professed  by  the  society  of  States,"  says  a  dis- 
tinguished American  professor  of  international  law. 

No  country  can  violate  this  principle  with  impunity, 
and,  if  it  does  violate  it,  the  pecuniary  damages  which 
may  be  the  consequence  of  the  violation  are  to  be  charged 
to  the  country  that  commits  the  infraction. 

From  the  moment  in  which  President  Wilson  began  to 
intervene  in  the  interior  affairs  of  Mexico,  there  was  born 
for  the  United  States  the  correlative  obligation  of  indem- 
nifying all  those  who  suffered  in  their  persons  and  inter- 
ests as  a  consequence  of  the  acts  of  intervention. 

As  President  Wilson  acted  in  his  official  character  and 
in  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  United  States,  no  one 
will  be  able  to  say  that  the  pecuniary  responsibilities 
alluded  to  are  not  to  be  charged  to  the  United  States. 

It  belongs,  then,  to  the  American  people  to  pay  the 
account  of  the  adventure  of  their  President  in  Mexico. 

The  interventionist  policy  of  President  Wilson  has 
caused,  from  the  pecuniary  point  of  view,  two  kinds  of 
damages:  the  indirect,  which  are  ascertainable  with  diffi- 
culty and  which,  therefore,  only  involve  a  moral  and  his- 
torical responsibility;  and  the  direct,  which,  indeed,  can 
be  estimated  in  dollars  and  cents.  The  latter  are  those 
which  the  American  tax  payer  will  have  to  pay  sooner  or 
later. 

The  damages  of  the  first  kind  indicated  are,  in  truth, 
incommensurable.  When  President  Wilson  began  to  take 
a  hostile  attitude  in  respect  to  the  government  presided 
over  by  Huerta,  business  men,  principally  the  foreigners 


68 

who  had  capital  invested  in  Mexico,  began  to  fear  for 
the  fate  of  their  investments.  These  fears  took  the  char- 
acter of  a  veritable  panic  when  Mr.  Wilson,  by  unequi- 
vocal acts,  signified  his  purpose  to  destroy  Huerta  and  to 
cause  the  revolution  to  triumph. 

Indeed,  no  one  could,  from  that  moment,  have  confi- 
dence in  the  country.  Huerta  was  considered,  in  spite  of 
his  defects,  as  a  man  capable  of  preserving  order  and, 
therefore,  of  causing  property  to  be  respected.  His  gov- 
ernment inspired  such  confidence  in  its  first  days  that 
without  difficulty  he  succeeded  in  placing  a  loan  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  with  the  great  banks  of  Europe. 

But  when  it  was  seen  that  his  government  was  sen- 
tenced to  death  by  President  Wilson  (see  Chapter  III) 
and  that  the  formidable  power  of  the  United  States  was 
placed  on  the  side  of  the  revolution,  everybody  sought  the 
means  of  protecting  his  interests.  It  was  indeed  a  "save 
himself  who  can." 

No  one  could  have  confidence  in  the  revolution,  be- 
cause in  this  there  dominated  that  which  dominates  in  all 
Latin- American  revolutions :  the  personal  ambition  of  one, 
or  various  men  to  possess  themselves  of  the  government. 
Only  Mr.  Wilson,  who  appears  ignorant  of  the  psychology 
of  this  kind  of  revolts,  could  believe  that  it  was  the  con- 
scientious movement  of  a  people  struggling  for  liberty; 
but  for  those  who  are  acquainted  with  that  psychology, 
the  confidence  or  want  of  confidence  which  the  revolution 
inspired,  was  measured  by  the  confidence  or  want  of  con- 
fidence which  its  leaders  inspired. 

And  the  latter  could  not  be  less  worthy  of  confidence. 
Carranza,  the  nominal  chief,  had  the  record  of  an  ob- 
scure and  servile  politician  of  the  dictatorship  of  Porfi- 
rio  Diaz.  He,  who  had  arrived  at  old  age  without  reveal- 
ing any  aptitude  as  a  statesman,  notwithstanding  the 
opportunities  which  he  had  had,  appeared  the  least  able 
to  place  himself  at  the  front  of  a  country  so  difficult  to 
govern  as  Mexico.  Attention,  moreover,  was  given  to  the 


69 

fact  that  by  the  side  of  Carranza  there  was  none  of  the 
men  known  to  be  capable  of  directing  and  administering 
public  affairs,  and  that  his  counselors  and  co-workers  were 
unknown  people  and  youths  who  had  not  attained  their 
thirties. 

On  the  contrary,  the  second  man  of  the  revolution, 
indeed,  appeared  strong,  formidably  strong, — but  he  was 
Francisco  Villa.  Everybody  knew  his  record,  in  which 
there  was  no  crime  which  could  not  be  imputed  to  him. 

The  consternation  which  was  caused  by  seeing  the 
President  of  the  United  States  pledged  to  the  triumph  of 
these  men  produced,  as  a  first  result,  the  suspension  of  all 
investment  of  foreign  capital  in  Mexican  business.  This 
signified  a  grave  disturbance  of  the  economic  situation 
of  Mexico,  whose  economic  balance  only  can  be  maintained 
by  means  of  the  uninterrupted  influx  of  outside  capital. 

A  concomitant  phenomenon  was  the  withdrawal  of 
capital,  which  took  all  possible  forms,  including  that  of 
the  emigration  of  metallic  specie. 

Thus  was  initiated  the  ruin  of  Mexico.  Not  only  was 
the  development  of  the  riches  of  the  country  suspended, 
but  that  which  already  had  been  accumulated  began  to 
dwindle.  Confidence  being  lost  in  the  men, — as  unfortu- 
nately, none  was  felt  for  the  institutions  which  were  yet  in 
an  embryonic  state, — in  the  presence  of  the  attitude  of  the 
American  President,  pledged  to  destroy  the  existing  gov- 
ernment in  order  to  deliver  the  fate  of  the  country,  not  to 
the  people  whose  immense  illiterate  majority  were  not 
interested  in  the  revolution,  but  to  inept  politicians  like 
Carranza  or  to  professional  brigands,  such  as  Villa,  every 
man  who  could  disentangle  his  interests  from  that  menac- 
ing situation  did  it  without  hesitation  and  with  the  great- 
est possible  promptitude. 

Who  is  responsible  for  this  first  phase  of  the  economic 
disaster  of  Mexico?  History  will  show,  in  a  very  dis- 
tinguished place,  the  American  Government;  but  it  will 
not  be  possible  to  fix  its  responsibility  in  cash.  The 


68 

who  had  capital  invested  in  Mexico,  began  to  fear  for 
the  fate  of  their  investments.  These  fears  took  the  char- 
acter of  a  veritable  panic  when  Mr.  Wilson,  by  unequi- 
vocal acts,  signified  his  purpose  to  destroy  Huerta  and  to 
cause  the  revolution  to  triumph. 

Indeed,  no  one  could,  from  that  moment,  have  confi- 
dence in  the  country.  Huerta  was  considered,  in  spite  of 
his  defects,  as  a  man  capable  of  preserving  order  and, 
therefore,  of  causing  property  to  be  respected.  His  gov- 
ernment inspired  such  confidence  in  its  first  days  that 
without  difficulty  he  succeeded  in  placing  a  loan  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  with  the  great  banks  of  Europe. 

But  when  it  was  seen  that  his  government  was  sen- 
tenced to  death  by  President  Wilson  (see  Chapter  III) 
and  that  the  formidable  power  of  the  United  States  was 
placed  on  the  side  of  the  revolution,  everybody  sought  the 
means  of  protecting  his  interests.  It  was  indeed  a  "save 
himself  who  can." 

No  one  could  have  confidence  in  the  revolution,  be- 
cause in  this  there  dominated  that  which  dominates  in  all 
Latin- American  revolutions :  the  personal  ambition  of  one, 
or  various  men  to  possess  themselves  of  the  government. 
Only  Mr.  Wilson,  who  appears  ignorant  of  the  psychology 
of  this  kind  of  revolts,  could  believe  that  it  was  the  con- 
scientious movement  of  a  people  struggling  for  liberty; 
but  for  those  who  are  acquainted  with  that  psychology, 
the  confidence  or  want  of  confidence  which  the  revolution 
inspired,  was  measured  by  the  confidence  or  want  of  con- 
fidence which  its  leaders  inspired. 

And  the  latter  could  not  be  less  worthy  of  confidence. 
Carranza,  the  nominal  chief,  had  the  record  of  an  ob- 
scure and  servile  politician  of  the  dictatorship  of  Porfi- 
rio  Diaz.  He,  who  had  arrived  at  old  age  without  reveal- 
ing any  aptitude  as  a  statesman,  notwithstanding  the 
opportunities  which  he  had  had,  appeared  the  least  able 
to  place  himself  at  the  front  of  a  country  so  difficult  to 
govern  as  Mexico.  Attention,  moreover,  was  given  to  the 


69 

fact  that  by  the  side  of  Carranza  there  was  none  of  the 
men  known  to  be  capable  of  directing  and  administering 
public  affairs,  and  that  his  counselors  and  co-workers  were 
unknown  people  and  youths  who  had  not  attained  their 
thirties. 

On  the  contrary,  the  second  man  of  the  revolution, 
indeed,  appeared  strong,  formidably  strong, — but  he  was 
Francisco  Villa.  Everybody  knew  his  record,  in  which 
there  was  no  crime  which  could  not  be  imputed  to  him. 

The  consternation  which  was  caused  by  seeing  the 
President  of  the  United  States  pledged  to  the  triumph  of 
these  men  produced,  as  a  first  result,  the  suspension  of  all 
investment  of  foreign  capital  in  Mexican  business.  This 
signified  a  grave  disturbance  of  the  economic  situation 
of  Mexico,  whose  economic  balance  only  can  be  maintained 
by  means  of  the  uninterrupted  influx  of  outside  capital. 

A  concomitant  phenomenon  was  the  withdrawal  of 
capital,  which  took  all  possible  forms,  including  that  of 
the  emigration  of  metallic  specie. 

Thus  was  initiated  the  ruin  of  Mexico.  Not  only  was 
the  development  of  the  riches  of  the  country  suspended, 
but  that  which  already  had  been  accumulated  began  to 
dwindle.  Confidence  being  lost  in  the  men, — as  unfortu- 
nately, none  was  felt  for  the  institutions  which  were  yet  in 
an  embryonic  state, — in  the  presence  of  the  attitude  of  the 
American  President,  pledged  to  destroy  the  existing  gov- 
ernment in  order  to  deliver  the  fate  of  the  country,  not  to 
the  people  whose  immense  illiterate  majority  were  not 
interested  in  the  revolution,  but  to  inept  politicians  like 
Carranza  or  to  professional  brigands,  such  as  Villa,  every 
man  who  could  disentangle  his  interests  from  that  menac- 
ing situation  did  it  without  hesitation  and  with  the  great- 
est possible  promptitude. 

Who  is  responsible  for  this  first  phase  of  the  economic 
disaster  of  Mexico?  History  will  show,  in  a  very  dis- 
tinguished place,  the  American  Government;  but  it  will 
not  be  possible  to  fix  its  responsibility  in  cash.  The 


72 

prise,  to  turn  back."  (Interview  of  the  23rd  of  May, 
1914,  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post). 

"When  I  see  the  crust  even  so  much  as  slightly  broken 
over  the  heads  of  a  population  which  has  always  been 
directed  by  a  board  of  trustees,  I  make  up  my  mind  that 
I  will  thrust  not  only  my  arm  but  my  heart,  in  the  aper- 
ture, and  that  only  by  crushing  every  ounce  of  power  that 
I  can  use  shall  any  man  ever  close  that  opening  up  again." 

This  the  President  said,  referring  to  Mexico,  at  the 
banquet  which  was  celebrated  in  Washington  on  Jefferson 
Day  on  April  13th  of  the  present  year.  We  do  not  know, 
of  course,  which  is  that  "board  of  trustees"  against  whom 
Mr.  Wilson  thunders ;  but,  in  every  case,  any  government 
whatever  in  Mexico  will  always  run  the  risk  of  being 
declared  a  "board  of  trustees"  by  the  American  President, 
and  of  having  the  latter  use  even  the  "last  ounce"  of  the 
formidable  power  of  the  United  States  to  destroy  it. 

With  these  doleful  precedents  we  must  repeat,  with 
reason,  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  a  new 
factor  of  distrust,  and,  finally,  an  obstacle  to  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  the  economic  life  of  Mexico. 

Let  us  suppose  a  government  established  in  that  coun- 
try against  which  any  ambitious  chief  in  Chihuahua,  or 
in  some  other  State  contiguous  with  the  United  States, 
rises  in  arms.  If  the  American  President  should  declare 
that  that  ambitious  chief  is  a  Christ  of  the  down-trodden 
people,  of  the  "eighty-five  per  cent."  which  is  the  object 
of  the  presidential  "passion,"  the  revolt  will  prosper  with- 
out any  doubt.  It  will  avail  nothing  that  a  law  exists 
regarding  embargo  of  arms ;  it  will  serve  for  nothing  what 
the  treaties  and  international  law  may  provide:  for  the 
President  there  are  no  limitations ;  and  just  as  Mr.  Wilson 
could  with  impunity  sacrifice  more  than  two  hundred  lives 
to  take  Vera  Cruz  and  to  hurl  Huerta  from  power,  any 
other  president  will  be  able  to  make  use  of  similar  pro- 
ceedings in  an  analogous  case,  without  the  American 
people  having  means  to  prevent  such  illegitimate  acts. 


73 

But  let  us  return  to  the  subject  of  the  pecuniary  re- 
sponsibilities. It  is  evident  that  the  great  nations  of 
Europe  are  going  to  make  somebody  pay  what  Mexico 
owes  them,  and  that  upon  the  termination  of  the  great  war 
those  impoverished  countries  will  begin  to  collect  all  their 
credits.  Those  which  are  charged  to  Mexico  represent 
sums  of  consideration. 

They  will  immediately  meet  with  the  difficulty  of  the 
insolvency  of  their  debtor;  but  this  will  not  be  a  serious 
obstacle.  America  is  rich  and  it  will  have  to  pay  the 
account.  Why? 

Mexico  has  incurred  these  responsibilities,  due  solely 
to  its  condition  of  anarchy;  and  if  it  is  proved  that  the 
United  States  is  responsible  for  that  condition  it  will  be- 
long to  the  United  States  to  pay. 

For  the  great  powers  of  Europe  the  situation  will  be 
very  clear.  They  all  recognized  Huerta,  taking  the  posi- 
tion that  his  government  gave  them  every  kind  of  guar- 
anties. If  the  United  States  had,  at  the  same  time,  ac- 
cepted Huerta  and  the  latter  had  failed,  Europe  would 
have  nothing  to  say. 

But  the  conclusion  is  different  when  the  failure  of 
Huerta  is  imputable  to  the  United  States.  From  the 
moment  in  which  President  Wilson  announced  that  he 
would  overthrow  Huerta,  (see  Chapter  III)  the  basis  of 
the  pecuniary  responsibilities  of  the  American  people  was 
definitely  established. 

If  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Wilson  had  been  legitimate,  we 
would  have  to  say  another  thing;  but  according  to  uni- 
versal doctrine,  invoked  in  the  first  paragraph  of  this 
chapter,  the  United  States  violated  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  international  law,  first  in  overthrowing  Huerta, 
and  second,  in  aiding  Villa  and  Carranza.  If,  indeed, 
these  acts  of  the  American  Government  have  been  trans- 
lated into  enormous  pecuniary  losses,  the  United  States 
will  have  to  indemnify  the  European  countries  injured 
thereby. 


74 

This  is  true,  speaking  in  general  terms,  but  we  could 
enter  into  concrete  cases.  We  will  limit  ourselves  with  a 
few. 

The  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz  would  have  had  certain 
aspects  of  legitimacy  if  it  had  been  due  to  the  incident 
of  the  salute  to  the  flag,  as  the  President  made  the  people 
and  Congress  believe ;  but  it  is  proved  that  that  occupation 
had  two  illegitimate  objects  neither  of  which  was  the  busi- 
ness of  the  President  of  the  United  States:  "To  serve 
humanity  and  the  Mexicans,"  and  to  overthrow  Huerta, 

The  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz  caused  enormous  losses 
to  the  great  railroad  enterprise  known  as  the  "Mexican 
Railroad,"  which  belongs  to  an  English  company.  That 
railroad  connects  Vera  Cruz,  the  first  port  of  Mexico,  with 
the  capital,  touching  the  important  cities  of  Cordoba,  Ori- 
zaba and  Puebla.  The  greater  part  of  the  commerce  and 
importations  of  Mexico,  and  much  of  the  exportation,  was 
made  at  that  time  over  that  line.  The  traffic  was  suddenly 
interrupted  by  the  landing  of  the  American  forces. 

Is  Mexico  going  to  pay  for  the  pecuniary  responsibili- 
ties which  the  British  Government  will  exact,  in  due  time, 
for  the  enormous  losses  which  that  railroad  suffered?  And 
why  has  Mexico  to  respond  for  the  claims  of  other  gov- 
ernments, such,  for  example,  as  the  French,  for  the  losses 
and  damages  which  the  great  French  textile  and  cotton 
factories  of  Orizaba  suffered  and  which  were  also  damaged 
by  the  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz? 

Many  other  cases  could  be  cited.  For  example,  Presi- 
dent Wilson  urged  Americans  to  leave  Mexico  without 
delay,  causing  them  to  believe  that  war  was  going  to  be 
declared  against  the  Government  of  Huerta.  Those  men 
who  had  no  motive  of  complaint  against  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment abandoned  all  their  properties  and  interests  and 
many  of  them  were  ruined.  Is  Mexico  going  to  pay  the 
claims  which  will  be  presented  by  these  direct  victims  of 
the  caprices  of  Mr.  Wilson? 

We  sincerely  believe  that  all  the  pecuniary  indemnities 


75 

which  will  be  exacted  from  Mexico,  as  a  consequence  of 
its  state  of  anarchy,  from  the  date  that  the  so-called  con- 
stitutionalist revolution  was  started  up  to  the  present 
time,  will  have  to  be  borne  by  the  United  States,  for  the 
illegitimate  and  baneful  participation  which  its  govern- 
ment took  in  Mexican  affairs.  Because  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  United  States — or  its  President — not  only 
destroyed  a  government,  but  it  imposed  upon  the  country 
an  inept  and  rapacious  faction.  Later  when  this  faction 
was  split  and  a  new  contest  developed,  more  destructive 
and  cruel  than  the  previous  one,  the  United  States  pro- 
moted that  contest,  by  delivering  Vera  Cruz  to  Carranza 
and  thus  preventing  the  elimination  of  that  chieftain. 
Then,  when  anarchy  had  arrived  to  frightful  extremes  the 
President  limited  himself  with  directing  admonitions  of 
lofty  rhetoric  to  the  contending  parties,  but  made  no  use 
of  the  remedy  which  he  was  legally  able  to  apply:  the 
embargo  upon  arms  and  munitions. 

All  this  is  to  be  paid  for,  because  it  resulted  in  damages 
estimable  in  money. 

Much  has  been  said  that  Mexico  will  be  obliged  to 
make  compensation  for  the  lives  of  the  Americans  who 
have  been  victims  of  bandits  and  revolutionists;  but  it 
is  forgotten  that  the  United  States  has  equivalent  respon- 
sibilities to  Mexico.  So  far  as  it  concerns  lives,  it  is  clear 
that  the  United  States  will  have  to  pay  for  the  Mexicans 
sacrificed  in  Vera  Cruz  from  the  moment  in  which  the 
occupation  of  this  port  may  be  declared  an  unwarranted 
attack,  as  it  is. 

As  for  other  responsibilities,  there  will  always  be  a 
Mexican  counter-claim  to  oppose  to  any  American  claim 
whatever,  considering  that  we  Mexicans  have  suffered 
more  than  any  one  else  from  the  supervising  and  meddle- 
some action  of  the  United  States. 

But  let  us  put  to  one  side  the  responsibilities  estimable 
in  money.  "When,  before  the  tribunal  of  Universal  Con- 
science, when,  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Civilization, 


76 

the  cause  of  Mexico  is  presented,  the  moral  responsibilities 
of  the  United  States  will  be  defined  and  the  present  ad- 
ministration will  be  stigmatized  for  having  caused  the  loss 
of  many  honest  and  legitimate  interests,  for  not  having 
enforced  respect  for  the  rights  of  its  own  citizens,  for 
having  shed  blood  and  having  caused  tears  to  flow  with-. 
out  proper  cause,  for  having,  in  fine,  precipitated  to  its 
ruin  a  nation  which,  although  weak  and  infirm,  has  given 
proofs  in  the  past  of  not  needing  foreign  tutors  who  em- 
ploy in  the  service  of  their  own  ignorance  and  pride  the 
invincible  power  of  a  great  nation. 


77 


CHAPTER  XI. 

FALSE  POSTULATES 

"The   Struggle  for  Liberty.''     "The  Fight  for   the  Land."— The  Con- 
cessionaires. 

"My  passion  is  for  the  submerged  eighty-five  per  cent, 
of  the  people  of  that  republic,  who  are  now  struggling 
toward  liberty,"  said  Mr.  Wilson  in  May,  1914,  referring 
to  the  revolution  whose  most  conspicuous  figure  was  then 
Francisco  Villa.  (Interview  in  the  Saturday  Evening 
Post). 

Who  compose  that  eighty-five  per  cent.?  Mr.  Wilson 
himself  undertakes  to  say:  "The  present  revolution,  like 
all  preceding  revolutions,  is  primarily  a  revolution  by  the 
peons,  who  want  to  regain  their  land";  and  he  adds  that 
the  revolution  was  "a  fight  for  the  land,  just  that  and 
nothing  more." 

Let  us  pass  over  the  statement  that  all  revolutions  in 
Mexico  have  been  for  the  land, — a  statement  that  makes 
any  student  of  Mexican  history  smile — and  let  us  limit 
ourselves  to  analyzing  very  briefly  the  character  of  the 
Villa-Carranza  revolution. 

Let  it  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  all  the  revo- 
lutionary armies  together,  besides  all  the  bands  of  brig- 
ands who  called  themselves  revolutionists,  never  reached 
150,000  men ;  that  is  to  say,  one  per  cent,  of  the  total  popu- 
lation. It  is  surprising  that  when  the  eighty-five  per  cent, 
of  the  population;  that  is,  let  us  say,  ten  millions,  were 
"struggling  toward  liberty,"  this  enormous  human  mass 
only  produced  such  an  insignificant  number  of  effective 
fighters.  On  the  other  hand  during  the  revolution  there 
never  occurred  any  of  those  gigantic  popular  convulsions 
which  characterize  the  uprisings  of  every  people  which 
shakes  off  the  yoke  of  its  oppressors.  If  the  revolution 
had  been  the  work  of  the  ten  millions,  we  would  have  wit- 
nessed similar  pictures  to  those  which  history  presents  in 


78 

cases  of  a  true  popular  struggle  for  liberty.  We  would 
have  seen  the  people  unite  themselves  to  the  liberating 
armies,  and,  thereupon,  in  the  shelter  of  their  conquered 
liberty,  create  the  instruments  which  insure  life,  property, 
and  the  free  exercise  of  civic  rights.  We  would  have  seen 
the  town  councils,  the  local  governments,  the  representa- 
tive assemblies,  reconstructed.  We  would  have  heard  the 
voice  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people  calling  to  the  citizens, 
like  Danton  to  the  people  of  Paris,  to  organize  the  revolu- 
tionary government.  We  would  have  seen  something,  in 
fine,  which  would  indicate  the  participation  of  the  masses, 
although  it  might  be  at  the  hour  of  the  triumph  against 
the  oppressors.  However,  we  saw  nothing  of  this  kind. 

The  Revolutionists  entered  a  place,  and  the  inhabit- 
ants, terrorized,  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses,  con- 
cealed their  wives  and  their  daughters  to  save  them  from 
the  lust  of  those  ferocious  beasts,  and  concealed  their 
properties  to  save  them  from  pillage.  In  the  great  cities 
there  were  customarily  acclamations  and  friendly  recep- 
tions for  the  victors,  inspired  more  by  fear  of  being  con- 
sidered unfriendly  than  by  a  legitimate  enthusiasm;  but 
nowhere  was  seen  the  popular  effort  to  draw  from  that 
triumph  any  advantage  for  the  effectiveness  of  the  public 
liberties.  Martial  law  was  the  form  in  which  the  revolu- 
tionary authority  was  exercised.  The  military  tribunal, 
without  law,  and  arbitrary,  substituted  the  civil  tribunal ; 
the  military  commander  took  the  place  of  the  municipal 
council;  the  military  governor  that  of  the  civil  governor 
of  the  state  and  the  "First  Chief"  substituted  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  the  Congress  and  the  federal  courts 
of  justice. 

The  fact  is  that  the  Constitutionalist  revolution  was, 
like  the  majority  of  Latin- American  revolutions,  the  move- 
ment of  some  audacious  men,  seconded  by  some  men  sin- 
cere and  of  good  faith  and  by  many  merciless  brigands,  in 
the  face  of  the  absolute  passivity  and  the  stupefaction  of 
the  great  mass  of  the  population  which,  by  invincible 


79 

idiosyncrasy,  is  incapable  of  organizing  itself  for  defence 
or  of  feeling  enthusiasm  for  the  struggle. 

Those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  character  of  the  peoples 
in  which  the  Indian  element  and  the  mixed  Spanish-Indian 
element  dominate,  do  not  understand  this.  Those  who  are 
only  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  races 
are  incapable  of  comprehending  this  Sphinx-like  attitude 
of  an  entire  people  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  disasters; 
but  so  it  is,  and  this  constitutes  one  of  the  greatest  disad- 
vantages for  democratic  progress  in  the  countries  in  which 
the  Indian  element  dominates.  The  Latin- American  coun- 
tries in  which  the  white  race  predominates  have  entered 
into  other  paths.  % 

The  first  thing  which  the  revolution  did  at  dominating 
in  any  zone  was  to  establish,  as  we  have  said,  a  regime 
of  military  despotism ;  and  alas  how  idle  it  is  to  speak  of 
public  liberties ! 

It  will  be  said  that  this  was  necessary  as  a  measure 
of  transition;  but  this  transitory  state  has  been  main- 
tained for  two  years,  during  which  there  have  been  pro- 
hibited, under  penalty  of  death,  political  meetings,  the 
publication  of  independent  newspapers  and  every  mani- 
festation toward  the  liberty  for  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Wilson,  the  people  had  been  struggling. 

Every  legislative  assembly,  local,  state  and  national, 
has  been  absolutely  suppressed  and  the  courts  of  justice- 
abolished,  and  in  their  place  has  been  set  up  an  autocrat 
whose  power  has  no  limitations ;  who  not  only  dictates  all 
laws,  but  constitutes  himself  their  sole  judge  and  execu- 
tive. (See  decree  issued  by  Carranza  in  Vera  Ouz  on 
the  12th  of  December,  1914,  which  we  publish  as  an  ap- 
pendix). 

Mr.  Wilson  has  heard  it  said  that  in  Mexico  there  is 
an  agrarian  problem  and  has  asserted,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  the  "Constitutionalist"  revolution  was  a  "Fight  for 
the  land,  just  that  and  nothing  more" ;  but  surely  he  does 


80 

not  know  that  the  men  who  made  this  supposed  agragian 
revolution  did  not  demand  nor  have  they  ever  demanded 
that  land  be  given  them. 

The  rural  population  of  Mexico,  four  or  five  millions 
of  Indian  field  laborers,  did  not  make  the  revolution.  As 
the  negro  slaves  of  the  South  maintained  themselves  pas- 
sive and  faithful  while  their  masters  were  fighting  against 
the  liberating  armies  of  the  Union,  "the  peons"  as  Mr. 
"Wilson  says,  have  remained  indifferent  in  the  presence  of 
a  struggle  which  could  have  given  them  the  opportunity 
of  redeeming  themselves.  The  most  that  they  have  done, 
and  that  in  a  very  small  number,  has  been  to  unite  them- 
selves to  the  armies  of  anarchy  to  satisfy  their  lust  and 
their  thirst  for  blood  and  rapine,  always  latent  in  the  heart 
of  the  uncultivated  Indian ;  but  it  is  useless  to  try  to  dis- 
cover in  the  co-called  "Constitutionalist"  movement  a 
defined  effort  for  the  conquest  of  the  land.  That  which  has 
been,  indeed,  a  "Fight  for  the  land"  is  the  "Zapatista" 
movement;  and,  with  inexplicable  inconsistency  Mr.  Wil- 
son has  never  shown  any  interest  in  that  movement.  The 
Indians  of  the  State  of  Morelos,  with  Zapata  as  their 
leader,  have  made  an  agrarian  revolution,  but  Carranza, 
the  agrarianist  of  Mr.  Wilson,  is  trying  to  suppress  Zapa- 
tism  with  blood  and  fire!  Carranza  employs  against  the 
agrarianists  of  Morelos  the  same  cruel  procedure  which 
Huerta  employed;  and  up  to  now  we  do  not  know  that 
Mr.  Wilson,  who  sympathizes  so  much  with  the  imaginary 
Villa-Carranza  agrarian  movement,  has  made  a  single 
manifestation  of  support  for  those  who,  in  truth,  are  fight- 
ing for  the  land. 

The  economic  and  intellectual  situation  of  the  Indian 
in  Mexico,  as  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Spanish- American 
countries  from  Guatemala  to  Paraguay,  constitutes  a  grave 
problem  which  will  be  solved  when  a  majority  of  the 
Indian  field  laborers  are  converted  into  farmers  with  a 
direct  interest  in  the  land.  With  this  two  important  re- 
sults would  be  obtained  in  Mexico,  to  wit : 


81 

In  the  first  place,  it  would  make  of  these  men,  now 
passive  elements  and  victims  of  the  landlords  as  well  as 
of  the  revolutionist  "liberators,"  factors  for  the  conserva- 
tion of  social  order  and  for  the  arrest  of  anarchy,  which 
will  happen  from  the  moment  in  which  the  Indians,  by 
their  own  direct  interest  in  the  land  are  able  to  form  a 
patrimony;  and,  in  the  second  place,  it  would  encourage 
the  progress  of  agriculture,  to-day  not  only  backward  in 
its  methods,  but  insufficient  in  its  development  to  feed  the 
national  population,  in  spite  of  the  great  extension  of  the 
territory. 

The  agrarian  problem  considered  from  its  most  serious 
point  of  view,  which  is  that  of  the  regime  of  rural  prop- 
erty, presents  difficulties  of  an  economic  and  juridical 
kind  which  would  put  to  the  test  the  knowledge  of  the 
most  expert  statesmen.  The  property  regime  in  Mexico 
is  the  product  of  economic  and  historical  causes  which 
have  come  down  through  centuries,  since  the  remote  epoch 
of  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by  the  Spaniards.  Therefore, 
it  is  senseless  to  say  that  by  proceedings  of  confiscatory 
despoliation,  or  military  decrees,  as  Mr.  Carranza  has 
pretended  to  do,  that  regime  can  be  corrected. 

As  experience  has  amply  demonstrated,  it  will  serve 
for  nothing  to  divide  up  the  land  among  the  Indians,  for 
the  latter,  for  want  of  resources  and  because  of  their 
ignorance,  are  not  capable  of  keeping  it.  Nor  is  it  possible 
to  establish  a  country  of  small  proprietors  wherein  there 
are  no  institutions  of  rural  credit  or  ways  of  communica- 
tion or  the  other  elements  and  facilities  which  exist  in 
countries  where  agrarian  property  is  subdivided  among 
numerous  cultivators. 

To  accomplish  the  realization  of  all  this,  which  is  the 
labor  of  years,  a  constitutional  government  is  required, 
which  will  subject  its  proceedings  to  the  laws,  and  which 
will  enjoy  a  firm  credit;  that  is  to  say,  a  government  pre- 
cisely different  from  that  of  which  Carranza  is  the  head. 

Among  the  false  postulates  of  Mr.  Wilson,  the  one 


82 

which  merits  especial  mention  is  that  which  refers  to  the 
"Concessionaires."  To  justify  his  strange  omission  to 
care  for  his  countrymen  in  Mexico,  Mr.  Wilson  always 
alludes  to  them  in  a  form  which  smells  of  Wall  Street  or 
of  Standard  Oil ;  with  the  result  that  Americans  interested 
in  Mexico  are  made  to  appear,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  as  blood-suckers  that  merit  not  only 
the  abandonment  of  their  government  but  universal  exe- 
cration. These  are  the  "Americans  pressing  for  things 
they  could  never  have  got  in  their  own  country,"  Mr. 
Wilson  said  in  the  speech  in  which  he  accepted  his 
candidacy. 

We  shall  pass  over  the  circumstances  that  the  majority 
of  the  Americans  in  Mexico  are  employees,  engineers, 
small  farmers,  small  merchants  and  professional  men, 
almost  all  of  whom  have,  on  account  of  the  revolution, 
lost  the  little  and  only  property  they  had  in  the  world; 
and  we  shall  refer  ourselves  only  to  the  "sharks."  Who 
are  the  latter? 

This  matter  of  concessionaires  in  Mexico  is  a  bugaboo 
to  frighten  not  only  the  foolish,  but  men  as  expert  as 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Lane.  The  latter,  in  the 
defence  of  the  Mexican  policy  of  President  Wilson, 
alluded  to  several  times  in  this  book,  arrives  to  the  ex- 
treme of  asserting  that  it  has  been  the  custom  of  the 
Mexican  government  "to  sell  concessions  in  order  to  sup- 
port itself".  Probably  Mr.  Lane  confuses  Mexico  with 
some  other  country,  as  he  did  confuse  Porfirio  Diaz  with 
the  Venezuelan  dictator,  Guzman  Blanco;  but  the  dis- 
tinguished Secretary  should  know  that  since  the  year 
1893  up  to  the  fall  of  President  Madero — twenty  years — 
the  Mexican  government  never  sold  a  concession,  and 
that,  to  sustain  its  necessities  it  never  resorted  to  those 
expedients,  because  among  other  things  in  that  year  it 
adopted  an  admirable  system  of  budgets  based  on  the 
previous  limitation  of  the  expenses  in  view  of  the  probable 
and  previously  calculated  income  from  revenues.  This 


83 

progress  has  not  been  attained  even  by  the  government 
ef  the  United  States,  which  still  arranges  its  expenses  by' 
the  unfortunate  method  of  the  "pork  barrel." 

Of  course,  what  has  been  said  does  not  apply  to  the 
government  "de  facto",  the  creature  of  Mr.  Wilson,  which 
indeed  has  sold  concessions  to  American  "sharks",  an  in- 
stance of  which  is  that  of  the  sisal  monopoly. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  government  of  General  Diaz, 
some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago,  certain  odious  con- 
cessions were  granted ;  but  what  has  generally  been  called 
"concessions",  given  in  the  last  twenty-five  years,  are  such 
only  in  name. 

To  develop  her  great  resources,  Mexico,  a  country 
without  capital,  needed  to  resort  to  foreign  capital,  and 
the  government  of  General  Diaz  had  to  employ  certain 
stimuli  to  induce  capitalists  to  invest  their  money  in  a 
country  which,  on  account  of  its  turbulent  past,  inspired 
little  confidence.  Therefore,  the  following  system  was 
adopted:  any  one  who  would  oblige  himself  to  invest  a 
certain  amount  of  capital  in  an  enterprise  was  exempted 
for  a  certain  number  of  years  from  certain  kinds  of  taxes, 
and  was  permitted  for  a  limited  time  to  import  free  of 
customs  duties  the  machinery  and  tools  which  he  needed 
for  his  industry.  This  contractor — the  concessionaire  as 
he  was  called — signed  a  contract  that  imposed  upon  him 
the  obligation  of  expending  in  his  enterprise  a  stated 
amount,  and  guaranteed  his  obligation  by  a  deposit  of 
government  bonds.  In  exchange  for  this,  in  consideration 
of  the  advantages  which  his  industry  afforded  to  the 
country,  the  government  conceded  the  exemptions  above 
pointed  out.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  concessionaire  de- 
faulted in  complying  with  the  obligations  which  the  con- 
tract imposed  upon  him,  he  lost  the  deposit  of  guaranty, 
and  the  exemptions  that  were  granted  him  thereby  ceased. 
Sometimes  these  concessions  only  were  given  to  the 
founder  of  an  industry  new  to  the  country ;  but  the  general 
rule  was  that  they  were  granted  to  everybody  that 


84 

solicited  them  and  offered  the  securities  required  by  the 
law.  They  were  not  then  monopolies,  nor  were  they 
granted  for  every  industry  in  general,  but  for  some  things 
especially  important  for  the  development  of  the  natural 
resources  of  the  country. 

Under  the  protection  of  these  "concessions"  there  were 
established,  in  Mexico,  industries  which,  like  the  smelting 
of  ores,  increased  the  mineral  production  of  the  country 
more  than  one  thousand  per  cent.  At  the  present  time  no 
smelting  company  enjoys  exemptions,  and  they  are  all  in 
the  same  legal  condition  as  those  of  the  same  kind  in  the 
United  States. 

Some  of  the  companies  producing  petroleum  obtained 
also  "concessions"  such  as  those  that  have  been  described. 
The  veins  or  deposits  of  oil  belong  in  Mexico  to  the  owner 
of  the  soil,  and  the  "concessionaires"  only  obtained — in 
return  for  the  obligation  of  investing  large  amounts  of 
capital  in  the  development  of  this  industry — a  limited  ex- 
emption from  customs  duties  in  the  form  above  explained, 
the  term  of  which  has  expired  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases.  Exemption  which  also  was  given  them  to  export 
their  products,  without  paying  export  taxes,  was  simply 
nominal,  since  the  government,  under  various  pretexts, 
has  evaded  it. 

Contrary  to  what  is  generally  believed,  the  great 
quantity  of  petroleum  which  is  extracted  in  Mexico  does 
not  proceed  from  national  land,  but  from  lands  which 
companies  and  private  individuals  have  purchased  from 
their  owners.  Lord  Cowdray,  himself, — who  is  not  an 
American  but  an  Englishman,  and  who  indeed  has  a  con- 
cession to  exploit  petroleum  in  lands  of  the  public  domain 
— operates  almost  solely  upon  private  lands  under  leases 
with  their  owners. 

The  railroad  companies  have  received  frequent  sub- 
sidies in  the  form  of  a  payment  in  bonds  or  in  cash  for 
each  section  of  railroad  constructed.  These  Mexican  con- 
cessions are  mere  child's  play  by  the  side  of  those  that 


85 

the  government  of  the  United  States  gave  to  the  great 
lines  which  opened  up  the  West  and  which  received 
gigantic  gifts  in  money  and  in  public  lands. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Mexican  railroads,  which  never 
have  received  any  lands,  have  the  obligation  to  transport 
the  mails  free  of  charge;  and  under  the  law — with  the 
exception  of  one  line  which  belongs  to  an  English  com- 
pany— must  become  the  property  of  the  nation  at  the 
end  of  ninety-nine  years,  without  any  cost  whatever  to 
the  latter. 

We  could  continue  our  analysis  to  destroy  this  fantasm 
of  the  concessions,  which  only  exists  in  the  imagination  of 
one  who  does  not  know  what  Mexico  is. 

We  shall  not  deny  that  during  the  regime  of  General 
Diaz  enormous  business  was  created  under  the  protection 
of  the  government,  the  same  as  happens  in  the  United 
States  and  in  the  whole  world.  In  Mexico  also  there  are 
"deserving  Democrats"  who  thrive  on  official  aid;  these 
we  call  "cientificos,"  but  in  general  the  situation  in  this 
matter  is  totally  different  from  what  Mr.  Wilson  asserts 
with  as  much  emphasis  as  lack  of  foundation. 

Those  "concessionaires"  whom  Mr.  Wilson  nails  to 
the  cross  of  his  hatred  before  the  jeers  of  his  fellow-citi- 
zens, are,  nevertheless,  factors  of  the  first  importance  for 
the  progress  of  Mexico  and  are  the  heralds  of  friendship 
and  good  understanding  between  both  peoples.  From 
those  "concessionaires",  who  today  are  not  working  on 
account  of  the  reigning  anarchy,  the  authorities  de  facto 
almost  daily  demand,  with  prayers  and  with  threats,  that 
they  shall  renew  their  paralyzed  industries  in  order  to 
arrest  the  horrible  state  of  misery  and  in  order  to  give 
bread  to  millions  of  hungry  Mexicans. 

We  shall  terminate  this  chapter  with  a  citation  which 
has  a  happy  application  to  our  case. 

Treating  of  the  policy  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  other 
leaders  of  the  American  Congress  in  the  period  of  recon- 
struction, the  historian  Woodrow  Wilson  says  that  they 


86 

"did  not  know  the  region  with  which  they  were  dealing" ; 
and  adds  that  "Northern  men  who  did  know  it  tried  to 
inform  them  of  its  character  and  of  the  danger  and  folly 
of  what  they  were  undertaking;  but  they  refused  to  be 
informed,  did  not  care  to  know,  WERE  IN  ANY  CASE 
FIXED  UPON  THE  ACCOMPLISHMENT  OF  A 
SINGLE  OBJECT."  With  this  conduct  those  leaders 
"had  prepared  the  way  for  the  ruin  of  the  South,  but  they 
had  hardly  planned  to  ruin  it".  (Woodrow  Wilson's  His- 
tory of  the  American  People,  Vol.  5.  page  50). 

Why  does  Mr.  Wilson  see  things  in  one  manner  as 
an  historian  and  in  another  manner  as  President!  That 
with  which  he  reproaches  the  leaders  of  Congress,  we 
Mexicans  have  the  right  to  reproach  him  with ;  to  manage 
a  situation  without  knowledge  of  it,  to  refuse  all  informa- 
tion regarding  it,  and  to  fix  himself  upon  the  fulfillment 
of  a  single  purpose, — to  ruin  Mexico,  as  the  politicians  of 
reconstruction  ruined  the  South,  without,  nevertheless, 
having  the  purpose  of  ruining  it. 


87 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

THE  POWER  OF  WORDS. 
"He  has  kept  us  out  of  Mexico." 

President  Wilson,  who,  after  all,  is  a  man  and  a  poli- 
tician, has  tried  to  obscure  the  true  issues  of  the  Mexican 
question  by  making  the  public  believe  that  he  has  saved 
the  United  States  from  a  war  with  Mexico. 

In  one  of  his  last  speeches,  in  order  to  signify  how  his 
supposed  attitude  accords  with  the  general  feeling,  Mr. 
Wilson  referred  to  the  engineer  of  a  train  on  which  he 
was  traveling,  who  had  said  to  him  in  a  tone  of  entreaty : 
"Mr.  President,  keep  us  out  of  Mexico." 

Acquainted  with  human  frivolity,  it  was  of  little  im- 
portance to  Mr.  Wilson  that  his  acts  are  in  constant  con- 
tradiction with  his  words  and  that  the  latter  frequently 
contradict  each  other.  That  which  sounds  best  to  the  ear  is 
the  only  thing  that  prevails,  and  the  fallacy,  that  it  is  due 
to  Mr.  Wilson  that  there  is  no  wrar,  works  marvels  even 
among  serious  persons.* 

We  have  alluded  to  the  contradictions  of  Mr.  Wilson. 
These  are  so  many  and  so  frequent  that  it  would  be  a 

task  to  exhibit  them  all.    We  will  limit  ourselves,  then, 

*    f 

to  some  few. 

Notwithstanding  the  interminable  series  of  acts  of 
political  and  armed  intervention  which  he  has  executed  in 
Mexico,  and  that  the  reader  has  seen  enumerated  in  the 
preceding  chapters,  the  President  said  in  his  speech  at 
Indianapolis:  "...  so  far  as  my  influence  goes,  while 
I  am  President  nobody  shall  interfere  with  them"  (the 


*XOTE:  A  man  as  eminent  as  Mr.  Edison  (See  New  York  Times, 
September  4,  1916)  has  just  declared  for  the  re-election  of  Wilson 
among  other  reasons  because  the  President  has  acted,  in  relation  to 
Mexico,  "wisely,  justly  and  courageously."  It  is  clearly  seen  that 
Mr.  Edison,  who  has  little  time  to  study  these  things,  has  fallen  a 
victim  to  the  enchantment  of  words. 


Mexicans) ;  and  in  his  speech  at  Columbus  he  expressed 
himself  thus :  "The  Mexicans  may  not  know  what  to  do 
with  their  government,  but  that  is  none  of  our  business; 
and  so  long  as  I  have  the  power  to  prevent  it  nobody  shall 
butt  in  to  alter  it  for  them." 

On  the  other  hand,  in  his  speech  on  Jefferson  Day,  he 
asserted  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  destroy  even  the 
last  ounce  of  power  of  which  he  disposed,  before  any 
government  should  be  established  in  Mexico  that  would 
not  be  approved  by  Mr.  Wilson. 

"I  do  not  know  how  many  men  came  to  me",  said  the 
President  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  "and  suggested  that  the 
government  of  Mexico  should  be  altered  as  we  thought  it 
ought  to  be  altered,  but  being  a  subscriber  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Virginia  Bill  of  Eights  I  could  not  agree  with 
them".  And  nevertheless  John  Lind  went  to  Mexico  to 
demand  that  the  government  should  be  altered  as  Presi- 
dent Wilson  thought  that  it  ought  to  be  altered. 

In  his  speech  at  Columbus,  the  President  stated  that 
the  people  had  the  right  to  alter  or  abolish  by  any  means 
whatever — even  that  of  insurrection,  as  has  been  done 
in  Mexico — governments  which  are  "unsuitable  to  the  life 
of  the  people";  and  a  few  weeks  afterwards,  namely,  on 
the  6th  of  January,  1916,  the  President  made  a  speech  in 
Washington  in  which  he  proposed  to  the  Pan- American 
Scientific  Congress  the  celebration  of  treaties  between  the 
countries  of  this  continent,  which  should  have,  among 
other  objects,  "to  prohibit  the  exportation  of  the  munitions 
of  war  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  revolutionists  against 
neighboring  governments" ;  that  is  to  say,  he  proposed  a 
measure  to  make  the  exercise  of  the  right  of  insurrection 
impossible  and  which  would  have  prevented  Mr.  Wilson 
from  raising  the  embargo  on  munitions  for  the  benefit  of 
Villa  and  Carranza. 

Lastly,  in  order  not  to  make  this  tedious  enumeration 
interminable,  we  shall  finish  by  citing  a  passage  from  the 


89 

speech  which  Mr.  Wilson  delivered  in  New  York  on  the 
27th  of  January,  1916: 

"America  has  always  stood  resolutely  and  absolutely 
for  the  right  of  every  people  to  determine  its  own  destiny 
and  its  own  affairs.  I  am  absolutely  a  disciple  of  that 
doctrine  and  I  am  ready  to  do  that  thing  and  observe  that 
principle  in  dealing  with  the  troubled  affairs  of  our  dis- 
tressed neighbor  to  the  south".  (Speech  in  Aeolian  Hall). 

Here  again  the  contradiction  between  words  and  deeds 
is  patent.  To  say  that  he  has  applied  to  Mexico  the 
principles  that  the  latter  has  the  right  to  determine  its 
affairs  by  itself  alone,  is  a  mere  sarcasm  to  any  one  who 
knows  that,  from  the  mission  of  John  Lind  up  to  the 
recognition  of  Carranza,  the  President  has  done  nothing 
else  than  to  determine  the  affairs  of  Mexico. 

But,  we  repeat  it,  the  public  little  perceives  these  in- 
credible incongruities,  and  men  as  respectable  as  Mr. 
Edison  are  blinded  to  the  degree  of  believing  that  Mr. 
Wilson  has  not  intervened  in  Mexico.  (Note  to  this 
chapter).  And  the  President,  a  profound  psychologist, 
referred  with  delight  to  what  the  plain  people  said 
through  the  mouth  of  the  railroad  engineer,  adding  that 
so  long  as  he  should  be  President  he  would  keep  the 
United  States  "out  of  Mexico" ! 

What  is  meant  by  the  statement  that  the  President  has 
kept  the  United  States  "out  of  Mexico"? 

It  cannot  mean  that  the  President  has  not  intervened 
in  the  affairs  of  Mexico, — which  he  has  done  in  the  most 
high-handed  and  perilous  manner;  nor  does  it  mean  that 
the  United  States  has  not  carried  on  war  in  Mexico,  since 
the  affair  of  Vera  Cruz,  that  of  Parral  and  that  of  Carrizal 
have  cost  many  more  American  soldiers'  lives  than  the 
celebrated  naval  battles  of  Manila  and  Santiago  de  Cuba. 

It  may  be  said  that  those  have  not  been  real  wars, 
because  the  operations  have  not  been  continued ;  but  does 
the  merit  of  this  belong  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States'?  Surely  not.  The  occurrence  of  Vera  Cruz  was 


90 

a  casus  belli  provoked  by  Mr.  Wilson ;  but  the  latter  had 
the  good  fortune  that  Huerta  did  not  pick  up  the  glove. 
With  only  a  declaration  of  war  from  the  Mexican  dictator, 
with  only  an  attack  upon  General  Funston  in  Vera  Cruz, 
or  if  any  city  of  the  Texas  frontier  had  been  destroyed 
by  Huerta' s  forces,  a  general  war  would  have  been  in- 
evitable. 

Nothing  of  this  kind  happened,  because  Mr.  Wilson 
found  in  Huerta  an  enemy  "too  proud  to  fight" ;  but  this 
fortuitous  circumstance,  foreign  to  the  will  of  the  Presi- 
dent, should  not  be  credited  to  him  as  a  title  to  the  grati- 
tude of  the  people. 

When  the  partisans  of  Mr.  Wilson  said:  "We  have 
no  war  with  Mexico — thank  God  for  Wilson,"  they  should 
have  said,  in  justice:  "Thank  God  for  Huerta". 

And  what  of  Parral  and  Carrizal?  Already  we  have 
proved  that  the  punitive  expedition  is  an  illegal  invasion 
of  the  territory  of  Mexico  which  Carranza  did  not  oppose 
through  cowardice  and  weakness.  Carranza  nevertheless 
had  to  later  yield  to  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  and 
proposed  not  to  permit  the  advance  of  General  Pershing ; 
but  if  instead  of  limiting  himself  to  this,  Carranza  had 
attacked  the  American  column,  war  would  have  been  in- 
evitable. 

In  this  case,  as  in  that  of  Vera  Cruz,  the  armed  and 
illegal  invasion  of  Mexican  territory,  the  provocative  act 
of  war,  was  the  work  of  President  Wilson.  To  thank  him 
for  not  having  had  war,  when  the  American  people  owes 
this  service  to  Huerta  and  to  Carranza,  is  to  see  things 
contrariwise.  The  weakness  and  the  cowardice  of  two 
Mexican  dictators  have  saved  the  situation.  Huerta  and 
Carranza  are  creditors  for  the  adoration  of  Mr.  Bryan  and 
other  American  pacifists. 

A  war  of  invasion,  armed  intervention,  would  have 
been,  on  the  other  hand,  a  great  crime,  in  spite  of  the 
attacks  of  which  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  in 
Mexico  have  been  the  victims,  in  spite  of  the  incursions 


91 

into  Texas  and  New  Mexico.  All  these  acts  are  the  conse- 
quence of  a  state  of  anarchy  fomented  by  the  government 
of  the  United  States  and  sustained  with  American  arms 
and  munitions  whose  exportation  President  Wilson  was 
able  to  prevent.  The  terrible  consequences  of  the  absurd 
policy  of  Mr.  Wilson  ought  not  to  be  corrected  with  the 
commission  of  a  crime,  which  the  subjugation  of  an  entire 
people  by  arms  would  be,  a  people  which  has  suffered 
more  than  any  one  else  from  the  work  of  its  officious 
protector. 

The  sane,  legal  and  just  policy  would  have  been  to 
do  nothing  that  Mr.  Wilson  has  done.  The  critics  of  the 
1  fitter  are  reproached,  that  they  limit  themselves  to  criti- 
cising; and  that  they  do  not  suggest  what  it  would  have 
been  necessary  to  do ;  but  this  observation  has  no  weight. 
What  ought  to  have  been  done,  what  indeed  still  must  be 
done,  is  precisely  what  Mr.  Wilson  does  not  do,  which  is 
to  abstain  from  meddling  in  things  which  are  beyond  his 
legal  competency  as  President  and  beyond  his  knowledge 
as  a  man. 

It  was  within  his  right  not  to  recognize  Huerta,  but 
it  was  not  his  mission  to  overthrow  Huerta  and  to  aid 
Villa  and  Carranza.  From  intrusion  to  instrusion  Mr. 
Wilson  has  arrived  to  the  extremes  at  which  he  finds  him- 
self today,  without  knowing  how  to  extricate  himself  from 
the  entanglement.  The  Mexican  territory  invaded  by  a 
punitive  column  which  does  not  punish,  and  cannot  ad- 
vance without  provoking  conflict,  a  humiliating  situation 
for  Mexicans  and  a  shameful  one  for  the  United  States ; 
Mexico  devoured  by  anarchy,  with  its  economic  life 
paralyzed,  with  its  people  dying  of  hunger  and  pesti- 
lence; the  interests  of  foreigners  which  Mexico  so  much 
needs  in  order  to  live,  suffering  damage  by  the  stopping 
of  the  fountains  of  riches,  by  the  want  of  laws  and  con- 
stitutional guaranties  and  by  the  suspension  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice.  All  this  melancholy  picture  is 


92 

the  result  of  many  factors,  but  chiefly  of  the  Wilsonian 
policy. 

To  abandon  this  policy  is  the  important  thing,  that 
Mexico  may  raise  herself  alone  if  she  can.  She  has  been 
able  to  do  so  on  other  occasions,  when  she  has  had  the 
good  fortune  that  no  one  desired  to  play  the  "big 
brother"  to  her.  The  United  States  should  limit  herself 
to  demanding  guaranties  for  its  citizens:  this  it  has  the 
right  to  do,  and  in  it  we  Mexicans  could  not  find  any 
cause  of  offense,  but  we  do  not  wish  to  be  managed,  under 
pretext  of  offering  us  aid,  by  one  who  does  not  under- 
stand us  or  our  character  or  our  history  or  our  complica- 
tion of  races  of  our  language. 

Unfortunately  for  Mexicans,  a  new  factor  has  entered 
into  the  situation  of  Mexico,  in  these  last  days;  the 
electoral  fortunes  of  Mr.  Wilson. 

To  exploit  the  ultra-pacifist  sentiment  of  many,  a 
great  comedy  is  played  with  its  martial  scenario  very  well 
staged,  in  which  are  made  to  figure  as  supernumeraries 
all  the  forces  of  the  army  and  militia  of  the  United  States. 
One  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  soldiers  to  protect 
this  powerful  country  from  some  hundreds  of  brigands ! 
Terrified  before  such  a  combination  of  warlike 
measures,  before  such  a  menacing  picture,  which  raises 
the  fear  of  imminent  conflict,  the  credulous  public  love  to 
applaud  the  prudence  of  Mr.  Wilson  for  causing  this 
thunder-cloud  to  dissolve  in  the  placidity  of  the  confer- 
ences of  New  London. 

Once  more  is  this  people  "kept  out  of  war"  by  the 
magic  of  Mr.  Wilson,  by  his  supreme  diplomacy! 

Carranza,  on  his  side,  plays  with  affability  the  part 
assigned  to  him,  convinced  that  it  is  to  his  interest  to  aid 
the  electoral  triumph  of  Mr.  Wilson.  The  "First  Chief" 
has  been  able  to  prove  all  the  force  that  his  stubborn  and 
obstinate  character  has  over  the  vacillating  spirit  of 
President  Wilson.  It  will  be  remembered  in  effect — to 
cite  some  of  the  many  examples — that  when  Wilson  asked 


93 

Carranza  to  attend  the  conference  of  Niagara  Falls,  the 
latter  firmly  refused,  with  which  Mr.  Wilson  conformed; 
that  when  Wilson  opposed  the  demand  of  Carranza  for  the 
unconditional  surrender  of  Carvajal,  Wilson  yielded 
finally  to  the  demand  of  Carranza;  that  when  the  latter 
was  invited  by  Wilson  to  celebrate  peace  with  the  Villa 
faction,  Carranza  answered  that  it  was  not  the  "business" 
of  Wilson  to  meddle  in  the  contests  of  Mexicans,  to  which 
Mr.  Wilson  had  nothing  to  reply ;  that  when  the  American 
government,  associated  with  six  complacent  Latin- Ameri- 
can governments,  invited  the  factions  to  a  conference  of 
peace,  Carranza  was  the  only  one  who  rejected  the  invita- 
tion in  haughty  form,  demanding,  in  exchange,  that  he  be 
recognized,  which  was  quickly  done ;  that  although  Presi- 
dent Wilson  had  announced  himself  as  "the  champion  of 
constitutional  government  on  this  continent"  and  had  de- 
clared that  he  would  not  have  as  a  government  in  Mexico 
one  which  should  not  be  regulated  by  the  constitution 
of  the  country,  he  nevertheless  recognized  the  dictator 
Carranza;  that  when  the  punitive  expedition  took  place, 
Carranza  prohibited  the  American  forces  from  using  the 
Mexican  railroads  and  from  entering  the  towns  and  vil- 
lages, to  all  of  which  Mr.  Wilson  acceded  with  meekness ; 
that  when  Carrauza  forbade  the  column  of  General 
Pershing  from  advancing  further  south,  Mr.  Wilson  im- 
mediately obeyed ;  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Wilson 
had  menaced  with  "the  gravest  consequences"  any  act 
of  violence  against  the  forces  of  the  punitive  expedition, 
Carranza  destroyed  an  American  column  in  Carrizal,  and 
"the  gravest  consequences"  of  this  act  were  the  invitation 
to  the  conferences  of  New  London,  with  excursions  on 
the  Presidential  yacht  "Mayflower",  and  other  unheard  of 
courtesies  to  the  representatives  of  Carranza. 

All  this  the  "'First  Chief"  knows,  and,  as  is  natural, 
he  now  places  at  the  service  of  the  electoral  fortunes  of 
Mr.  Wilson  the  part  of  the  scenic  apparatus  which  has 
been  allotted  to  him. 


94 

For  that,  the  chairman  of  the  Carranza  delegation  in 
New  London  declared  that  the  enemies  of  the  Democratic 
party  were  the  enemies  of  the  "First  Chief" ! 

We  understand  that  in  this  country  of  democratic  insti- 
tutions, the  President  is  not  a  Czar,  nor  a  Kaiser,  nor  a 
"war  lord",  upon  whose  caprice  depends  war  or  peace. 
The  contrary  would  be  a  humiliation  for  the  free  citizens 
of  this  great  republic.  They  ought  not,  then,  to  thank 
President  Wilson  that  there  is  no  war,  when  there  is  no 
motive  for  war. 

There  is  no  motive  for  war  with  Mexico.  The  causes 
of  friction,  which  are  produced  with  such  lamentable  fre- 
quency, are  imputable,  as  we  have  proved,  to  the  ill  advised 
policy  of  the  President  of  the  United  States.  The  engineer 
of  the  presidential  train  who  said:  "Mr.  President,  keep 
us  out  of  Mexico",  should  have  said:  "Mr.  President, 
keep  out  of  Mexico". 

THE  END. 


95 


APPENDIX. 

We  have  referred  in  this  book,  to  the  remarkable  decree  of 
Carranza  in  which  he  declares  himself  invested  with  all  the  powers 
of  the  people,  not  only  those  vested  on  the  Executive,  Legislative 
and  Judicial  Federal  Powers  but  on  the  state  powers  as  well.  In 
the  face  of  this  decree,  which  creates  the  most  astounding  form 
of  dictatorship  that  Mexico  has  known,  President  Wilson  recog- 
nized Carranza. 

• 

The  decree  referred  to  reads  as  follows: 


I,  Venustiano  Carranza,  have  seen  fit  to  decree  the  following: 

Article  1.  The  plan  of  Guadalupe  of  March  26,  1913,  shall 
subsist  until  the  complete  triumph  of  the  revolution,  and,  there- 
fore, Citizen  Venustiano  Carranza  shall  continue  in  his  post  as 
first  chief  of  the  constitutionalist  revolution  and  as,  depository  of 
the  executive  power  of  the  nation,  until  the  enemy  is  overpowered 
and  peace  is  restored. 

Article  2.  The  first  chief  of  the  revolution  and  depository  of 
the  executive  power  of  the  Republic,  shall  enact  and  enforce,  dur- 
ing the  struggle,  all  the  laws,  provisions,  and  measures  tending  to 
meet  the  economic,  social,  and  political  needs  of  the  country, 
carrying  into  effect  the  reforms  which  public  opinion  demands  as 
indispensable  for  the  establishment  of  a  regime  which  will  guar- 
antee the  equality  of  Mexicans  among  themselves,  agrarian  laws 
favoring  the  creation  of  small  landowners,  the  suppression  of  lati- 
fundia  or  large  landholders,  and  the  restoration  to  townships  of 
the  lands  illegally  taken  from  them;  fiscal  laws  tending  to  estab- 
lish an  equitable  system  of  taxation  on  real  estate;  laws  tending 
to  improve  the  condition  of  the  rural  laborer,  the  workingman, 
the  miner,  and,  in  general,  of  the  working  classes;  the  establish- 
ment of  municipal  freedom  as  a  constitutional  institution;  bases 
for  a  new  system  of  organization  of  the  army;  amendments  of  the 
election  laws  in  order  to  insure  the  effectiveness  of  suffrage ;  organi- 
zation of  an  independent  judicial  power,  in  the  federation  as  well 
as  in  the  States ;  revision  of  the  laws  relative  to  marriage  and  the 
civil  status  of  persons;  provisions  guaranteeing  the  strict  observ- 
ance of  the  laws  of  reform;  revision  of  the  civil,  penal,  and  com- 


96 

mercial  codes;  amendment  of  judicial  procedure,  for  the  purpose 
of  expediting  and  causing  the  effectiveness  of  the  administration 
of  justice;  revision  of  laws  relative  to  the  exploitation  of  mines, 
petroleum,  water  rights,  forests,  and  other  natural  resources  of  the 
country,  in  order  to  destroy  the  monopolies  created  by  the  old 
regime  and  to  prevent  the  formation  of  new  ones ;  political  reforms 
which  will  insure  the  absolute  observance  of  the  constitution  of 
Mexico,  and,  in  general,  all  the  other  laws  which  may  b&  deemed 
necessary  to  insure  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  the 
effectiveness  and  full  enjoyment  of  their  rights,  and  their  equality 
before  the  laws. 

"Article  3.  In  order  to  continue  the  struggle  and  to  carry  into 
effect  the  reforms  referred  to  in  the  preceding  article,  the  chief  of 
the  revolution  is  hereby  expressly  authorized  to  convene  and  or- 
ganize the  constitutionalist  army  and  direct  the  operations  of  the 
campaign;  to  appoint  the  governors  and  military  commanders  of 
the  States  and  to  remove  them  freely;  to  effect  the  expropriations 
on  account  of  public  utility  which  may  be  necessary  for  the  dis- 
tributions of  lands,  founding  of  townships,  and  other  public  "ser- 
vices ;  to  negotiate  loans  and  issue  obligations  against  the  national 
treasury,  indicating  the  property  which  shall  guarantee  them ;  to 
appoint  and  remove  freely  federal  employees  of  the  civil  adminis- 
tration and  of  the  States  and  to  fix  the  powers  of  each  of  them; 
to  make,  either  directly  or  through  -  the  chiefs  he  may  appoint, 
requisitions  for  lands,  buildings,  arms,  horses,  vehicles,  provisions, 
and  other  elements  of  war;  and  to  create  decorations  and  decree 
recompenses  for  services  rendered  to  the  revolution. 

Article  4.  Upon  the  success  of  the  revolution,  when  the  su- 
preme chieftainship  may  be  established  in  the  city  of  Mexico  and 
after  the  elections  for  municipal  councils  in  the  majority  of  the 
States  of  the  Eepublic,  the  first  chief  of  the  revolution,  as  deposi- 
tory of  the  executive  power,  shall  issue  the  call  for  election  of  con- 
gressmen, fixing  in  the  calls  the  dates  and  terms  in  which  the  elec- 
tions shall  be  held. 

Article  5.  Once  the  federal  congress  has  been  installed,  the 
chief  of  the  revolution  shall  render  an  account  before  it  of  the  use 
he  may  have  made  of  the  powers  with  which  he  is  vested  hereby, 
and  he  shall  especially  submit  the  reforms  made  and  put  into 
effect  during  the  struggle,  in  order  that  congress  may  ratify  them, 
amend  them,  or  supplement  them,  and  to  the  end  that  those  which 
it  may  see  fit  may  be  raised  to  the  rank  of  constitutional  precepts, 
before  the  re-establishment  of  constitutional  order. 


97 

Article  6.  The  federal  congress  shall  convoke  the  people  to 
the  election  of  president  of  the  Republic,  and  as  soon  as  this  takes 
place  the  first  chief  of  the  revolution  shall  deliver  to  the  president 
elect  the  executive  power  of  the  nation. 

Article  7.  In  case  of  absolute  default  of  the  present  chief  of 
the  revolution,  and  until  the  generals  and  governors  proceed  to 
the  election  of  the  person  who  is  to  take  his  place,  the  chief  office 
shall  be  temporarily  filled  by  the  commander  of  the  army  corps 
at  the  place  where  the  revolutionary  government  may  be  at  the 
time  the  default  of  the  first  chief  occurs. 

V.  CARRANZA. 
ADOLFO  DE  LA  HUERTA, 
Chief  Clerk  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior. 

CONSTITUTION  >™  REFORMS, 

Vera  Cruz,  Deb^™*61'  12»  1914- 


The  above  decree  has  taken  theVlace  of  the  Constitution  of 
Mexico.  One  cannot  fail  to  recall  witnl  a  deep  feeling  of  discour- 
ao-ement  the  following  words  uttered  bX  President  Wilson  as  an 
excuse  for  not  having  recognized  Huerta:  "We^are  the  champions 
of  constitutional  government  in  this  continent . 


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